


does anything still move you since you're educated now?

by shestepsintotheriver



Series: AUs [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fake Dating with Benefits, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Idiots in Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mutual Pining, PDA, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Princess Bride References, Sexual Content, Tattooed Steve Rogers, a smidge of angst, a thoroughly happy ending, minor pairings (see author's note), some major american/christian holidays, the thinnest and most see-through excuses in the entire history of the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2020-07-25 19:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 43,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shestepsintotheriver/pseuds/shestepsintotheriver
Summary: Bucky meets the love of his life on his last day in elementary school. He doesn’t know it at the time, and he doesn't get to talk to the boy at all, instead vowing to do so the next time he gets the chance. The vow remains unfulfilled until many years later, when Bucky spots Steve Rogers from across the room at a college party and promptly falls in love all over again.And then Steve gets them into a fake dating scheme. This is the stupidest (best) thing that's ever happened to Bucky.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna be fluff, stupid boys in love, and a lot of kissing.  
tags will be updated as i go along.  
i own nothing, disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer, Marvel and Disney, all that stuff.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor pairings include:
> 
> \- Tony and Pepper  
\- Bruce and Thor  
\- Sharon and Maria  
\- Sam and Natasha  
\- Scott and Clint  
\- Dum Dum and 'Irina' aka The Bear  
\- Peggy and Angie

Bucky meets the future love of his life on his last day at Flatbush Elementary. He doesn’t know it at the time, of course, but the second he sees the new kid on visiting day, his belly fills with butterflies and his heart stutters wildly. He’s eleven years old and doesn’t know a thing about romantic love (or care much at all), but he knows that the small, blond kid is the most interesting boy in the whole wide world.

The kid’s barely taller than a second grader, wears a clunky hearing aid in one ear, and has a newly broken nose, two black eyes, and a dark scowl to match. It’s pure chance that Bucky overhears him introduce himself to his classmates-to-be. Well, chance _and _the fact that Bucky’s oldest little sister, Becca, will be starting in the same grade, so he’s allowed to be there to cheer her on despite none of the other kids’ siblings having showed up for this part of the reception. The boy’s name is Steve Rogers, he’s ten years old, and he’s repeating third grade because he’s been ill a lot and had to stay home almost all of last year. He says all of this with a mulish twist to his lips, just daring someone to comment.

Despite spending almost that whole day with Becca, her new classmates, and their assorted parents and siblings, Bucky never gets to speak to Steve. First of all, Steve’s really intimidating despite his diminutive size; second of all, he never stops frowning; and third of all, he seems to vastly prefer the company of his thick sketchbook over that of his peers, so interrupting him just seems rude. Besides, Bucky’s awash with nerves like never before, just watching from his seat next to Becca. Steve does smile once, and it’ll be all Bucky can think of for weeks to come; his mother, a small, finely wrought woman with a tattoo clearly visible on her upper arm—which is just _the coolest_—whispers something to Steve that makes his whole face light up.

When Bucky goes to bed that night, he can’t stop thinking of Steve and his sunshine hair and raincloud frown. Right then and there, he promises himself he’ll talk to Steve the next time there’s a get-together with Becca’s classmates and their families, but as it turns out, either Steve is out sick, or Bucky himself can’t make it what with baseball practice and his many extracurriculars.

And if Bucky feels a little twinge when, two years later, Steve doesn’t enter the same middle school as he and Becca, well. Only Dum Dum has to know. And Bucky’s parents. And his sisters. And their extended family. Okay, so Bucky might’ve been asking absolutely everybody why Steve wouldn’t end up in the same middle school when they’d attended the same elementary school, but no one has a satisfactory answer for the thirteen-year-old, and in time, he accepts it.

But he never forgets Steve Rogers or his smile.


	2. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> life is good for Bucky Barnes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not american and i don't care for how college works. so. i made my own version, and the xavier family was gonna be weird in some way okay.

Xavier International College is one of the top ten Ivy League universities in the US and you’ve probably never heard of it. It might be because of the whole ‘should the XIC even count as an Ivy League school?’ thing that’s still going on, despite its excellent track record both academically and athletically. It’s a debate that first and foremost centers on the fact that since its inception the XIC has been based on semi-socialist ideals that a lot of rich folks aren’t really keen on.

Those semi-socialist ideals have persisted since forever, and simply put, it means that even if you’re dirt poor, if you pass the entrance exam (which is free to take) you get not only a scholarship to cover the entire cost of your education, but also a little extra money that just about covers housing in Westchester where the XIC is based. Additionally, you also have access to a number of state-of-the-art dining halls, and, as long as you carry your student ID, you’ll get a discount practically anywhere within the limits of Westchester.

Such a wide range of courses are offered every year, and so many international students come and go (hence the name) that most of the time, the XIC campus feels more like a big, diverse city than simply the nucleus of Westchester. Bucky wouldn’t want to be any other place in the world. 

Of course, he’s having a particularly good time. Not only did he pass the entrance exam with flying colors, he was also immediately offered a spot on their nationally ranked college baseball team, the Xavier Howlers. That offer included room and board in one of the three baseball houses that serve as club house, residence, and party central for all Howlies during their time at XIC. In addition, Bucky has managed to complete his double-major bachelor’s degree in just three years _and_ been recommended for both the TA- and Mentor-programs.

And this is all despite the car accident that cost him his left arm in the last year of high school and the extensive reconstructive surgeries he underwent to finally fit a new, robotic arm to his body. He’s real fuckin’ lucky, and he knows it.

Now that the semester’s about to begin, Bucky’s been getting more and more excited about both the TA-ing and the mentorship. The former will be for two of Professor Ngozi’s mechanical and biomechanical engineering courses, both of which he aced during his undergrad years, and the latter will basically consist of him acting the padawan to a particularly skilled Ph.D. student. Xavier College is big on their students making connections across graduate levels, and since Bucky doesn’t actually spend a whole lot of time with the other engineering students in his classes, he truly looks forward to being able to geek out with someone he can learn a lot from while also being on more equal footing.

However, his mentor appears to be running late.

Bucky arrived at his mentor’s office in Stephenson Hall about half an hour ago and is now starting to feel excessively nervous as he gets sucked further and further into the uncomfortably deep armchairs in the hallway. They’re great for sleeping in; not so great for waiting in.

As he unearths himself from between the frightfully green cushions, another student comes running down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of Bucky. The other boy—man? Do you even really count as an adult when you’re still a student? In theory: yes. In practice: _please, no_—is a handsome, ruffled-looking guy with dark hair, light eyes, and the kind of face that’ll remain slightly boyish even when he gets well into middle-age. He’s around Bucky’s age…. _maybe_? It’s hard to tell with him.

“Am I late? I completely lost track of time—Luis called a roommate meeting about proper use of the dishwasher, and then we googled guidelines for using the dishwasher, and then we found out that you actually have to descale a dishwasher every once in a while, so we had to run out an buy white vinegar, ‘cause Dave insisted the commercial descale tabs were too—anyway, I’m Scott Lang, hi,” he says in one breath, sunny smile out in full force and hand held out for a shake. “Major in electrical engineering.”

Still processing that stream of words, Bucky manages to shake and introduce himself. “Bucky Barnes, double-major in mechanical engineering and biology.”

“Have you met—” Scott waves at the door, “before?”

Just as Bucky’s about to answer, a shortish, dark-haired guy comes around the corner. He’s carrying an enormous to-go cup of coffee in one hand, fumbling with a mess of keys on a single, thin keyring with the other, and wearing sunglasses despite being indoors and in a part of the building that doesn’t let in a whole lot of sunlight.

“Barnes and Lang?” he confirms, tipping his glasses down to peer intently at them with large, brown eyes. At their nods, he gets started on unlocking the door, pretty much ignoring them as they file in. Then, he chugs his coffee like it’s all that’s keeping him alive. It is fascinating. Disgusting, but fascinating.

Squinting against the light when he finally sheds his sunglasses, he drops into one of the office chairs and gestures for them to sit wherever.

“I’m Tony Stark, and you either did something very right or very wrong to be saddled with me and given the way Lensherr’s eye ticks whenever he so much as looks at me, I’m leaning more towards the latter,” he starts. “You’ve got two choices here: either, you walk out and never darken my door again, or you accept me as your lord and savior. You have twenty seconds, one, two—time’s up. You’re doomed. It’ll be way easier to reach me by text message, don’t expect me to coddle you, and remember to get your key to the office from Miss… Ellis? Alice? The secretary at the front desk down on the first floor.” Most of this is written messily on his arm in sharpie. 

Fifteen minutes later, Scott and Bucky are ejected from the office with the strict orders to text Tony their addresses and a list of friends to bring to some party that he’s planning, because ‘Rhodey said I could only invite people I actually _know_, and since you’re my minions now, you count, but being at a party alone is so boring, he’ll understand why you’re bringing friends, it’s 1940s themed, so make an effort or so help me God, the art students are coming and we _cannot _be shown up, bye now, children’. Bucky’s pretty sure that Tony didn’t actually stop to breathe even once during the whole meeting. Also: Tony is, at most, a year older than them.

So, maybe he should’ve been fearing the mentorship a little.

At least Tony’s academic papers had been really interesting.

*

Bucky and Scott end up sharing lunch in easy silence, only chatting a bit about their friends and trying to feel out whether they’ve got any in common. Turns out, Bucky knows one of Scott’s roommates (Kurt) from one of the gen-ed classes he’d taken a year ago (The Meaning of Houses in Classic Novels. It had been… well, it had sure been something). Also, Scott’s ex, Hope, knows Natasha, a dance student who would’ve been one of Bucky’s one-night-stands if she hadn’t been able to hold her liquor way better than he did, and he’d instead ended up crying on someone’s lawn. She took him home and dropkicked him into bed. She’s the best.

In fact, Natasha’s the first person he talks to when he gets back to the Howlie house. After being waylaid by Dum Dum about the training schedule for this fall. And then Gabe about the Howlie Halloween party (why is he stressing about that already?). And then Monty about the new devil’s ivy in their dorm which is called Gregory, and Bucky better not let Sir Quirrel get to him or there will be _hell _to pay.

Finally, he collapses on his bed and texts Nat.

His and Monty’s shared room is a cheerful space, the walls pasted with daffodil-wallpaper. Bucky would like to say that Monty’s the one who picked that out, but it’s about the only thing that Bucky was actually allowed to pick out. It’s okay. Monty has got pretty good taste in décor. Even if he does put plants absolutely everywhere.

He’s tracing a daffodil on the wall by his head when Nat texts back.

**Nat**: _what_

**Me**: _if tony stark says u gonna be invited to a party and u gotta be dressed in costume how fucked are u if u halfass it_

**Nat**: _how do you know tony_

**Nat**: _oh the mentorship thing_

**Nat**: _yeh youre fucked_

**Me**: _:(((((((((_

**Nat**: _stop being dramatic _

**Me**: _can u please please please help me find a costume _

**Nat**: _fiiiiiine the theater department still got some Biloxi Blues costumes lying around _

**Me**: _I don’t know what that means I need to be dressed like in the 40s _

**Nat**: _its fine its a WWII military play one of the actors was about ur size I think and if not then I got a friend wholl alter it for you _

They chat for a bit more after that, Nat confirming that she’s also going to be at the party, because, apparently, she’s friends with Tony’s ladylove (Bucky is _not _the one who uses that word) Pepper, an art major-business minor. Nat absolutely refuses to discuss her own costume, despite much whining on his part, and ends up just ghosting him.

When she doesn’t answer his fifteenth text, he turns to preparing for the TA-classes.

It’s not that he needs much prep, actually, since he’s been fine-tuning his material since he got the email stating he’d been accepted in the program, but he dreads the students hating him. From the roster, he can see that a lot of them are taking the class as part of their gen ed, and he doesn’t want to come off as a humorless hard-ass or like he’s just reading aloud from his notes. And, sure, he wants them to do well, but it _is _an entry-level course, and some of them might be undecided majors. And, okay, maybe he’s got a bit of a thing about being well-liked, and to know that he might’ve been what convinces someone to study bioengineering? God, he’ll never come down from that.

That’s not what matter most, of course. Getting them through the courses with minimal mental scarring, now that’s the issue. With how stressful college is and the spread of general anxiety afflictions in student population, he’s going to do his utmost not to add too much to that. Thankfully for both the baby engineers and the gen ed students, the rules about gen ed courses at XIC are more forgiving than they’d be elsewhere.

And he’s going to be the best TA _ever, _so help him, God.

As he’s rewriting his outline for their first bioengineering class, he faintly notes the sound of something rustling about outside the open window. Reacting at the last possible moment, he throws himself towards the dresser with Gregory the Ivy Plant and snatches it out of the path of Sir Quirrel as he comes barreling through. Never one to stay for long, the fuzzy little creature makes a beeline for their _closed _snack-drawer, somehow pries it open, and makes off with their salted peanuts. The whole scene is like something out of a bizarre monster movie, only the monster is a tiny little bastard with an attitude problem. Never mind that he’s the Howlies’ unofficial mascot, Sir Quirrel is a _menace_. He has his own chair in the living room for God’s sake.

Pausing at the window sill to glare balefully at Bucky, he disappears into the afternoon sun.

Monty walks in while Bucky’s still protectively curled around Gregory on the floor. He takes in the open snack-drawer, the trail of peanuts, and Bucky’s offended expression, and just sighs. “Well, at least you acted honorably.”

“Shut the fuck up and help me up.”


	3. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a party coming up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of a 2 chapter update! this is 1/2

“Do you know Stark or are you as tragically afflicted with art majors as I am?” one of his students asks during a TA session at his shared office.

Her name is Margaret Carter, but she reacts about as well to being called Margaret as Bucky does to being called James. Instead, she goes by Peggy. It’s weirdly old-fashioned, but if there’s one thing Peggy isn’t afraid of, it’s embracing an aesthetic. Her shoulder-length brown tresses are always wavy by design, her lips are always painted red, and she wears the kind of neat, smart clothes that brings to mind a 40s starlet. All she’d need is an Old Hollywood accent, but she’s almost offensively posh sounding, being an English ex-pat.

It’s late in the day. Bucky’s just spent the last several hours giving crash courses in basic physics that a lot of his students have apparently never had (he suspects some of them might be lying, there’d been a bit too much starry-eyed giggling happening). His brain feels very soupy, and the only thing he can think to reply with is: “Uh, what?”

Peggy points to the luridly golden envelope sticking out of his bag. Seriously, where had Tony found gold envelopes? It was even _shiny_. The rest of Howlies had pinned theirs on the cork board in the hallway back at the house, but Bucky had forgotten all about his after stuffing it into his bag. It’s a little bit squashed at this point.

“I don’t know Tony personally,” Peggy says, “but like I said: tragically afflicted with art majors, so I’ve been invited, too.”

“How do you become tragically afflicted with art majors?” Bucky asks curiously. He and Peggy have quite an informal relationship; they’d first met at a course on how to become the Supreme Leader (just kidding, it was an introductory class to political science, Peggy’s major). They didn’t exactly grow close, but they’d gravitated towards one another, if only to stop each other from murdering the assholes sitting up front and commenting on every single thing during class. 

Peggy shrugs elegantly. “My first love was a painter. Because of him, I met my girlfriend, Angie. She’s a theatre major, not art, but it’s the same level of overdramatic.”

“That sounds kinda self-inflicted.”

“I’m also tragically infected with loving them. Crosses to bear and all that.”

Despite her long-suffering air, when Peggy lets down her guard she’s about as dramatic as those two probably are. She laughs when Bucky recounts his first meeting with Tony, toasting the end of his sanity with her water bottle, and they end up spending half their time together gossiping. Bucky would feel bad about it, but there’s no one else waiting for his time. He can’t feel too guilty, especially when Peggy turns out to not have too many issues with the course material after all.

“I’ll introduce you at the party,” she says when they part. “I’m looking forward to meeting your friends as well.”

“Famous last words, Carter,” Bucky warns. Peggy rolls her eyes at him and swans off.

*

Tony’s house is a large, handsome building that could’ve served a frat very well indeed. Instead, only three people live there; Tony and his two best friends, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes and Bruce Banner. Rhodey is the one to greet them at the door, brows nearly touching his hairline when he recognizes them. He waves them in and tells them to make themselves comfortable, already moving on to greet the next group.

There’s a 50-50 chance Tony ‘forgot’ the instruction to only invite the people he knew personally.

Looking around, Bucky strongly suspects Tony has hired professional party planners to decorate the space. It’s all very put-together and almost neurotically arranged, and Tony wouldn’t have been able to keep that level of focus on anything but his own experiments. The professionals will, presumably, also be dealing with the clean-up; if not, Bucky doubts the house will look this orderly again until maybe next term.

There’s a portable, well-stocked bar in one corner, plenty of finger-foods on the tables lined up in the center of the room, and everybody is drinking from actual glasses rather than paper cups. Through another set of doors, there’s an open space that serves as the dancefloor. Discreet speakers in every room play a mix of 40s hits at a comfortable, if loud, volume. It only just occurs to him now, but at least half of those songs are just thinly veiled propaganda about soldiers and the army.

Well, at least he’s dressed appropriately then.

By miracle (or Monty), the Howlies have all managed to scrounge up different costumes. Bucky’s in his soldier’s uniform, a beige-ish khaki monstrosity that he’s glad he’ll never have to wear again; he’s even wearing a damn cap over his slicked-back hair. Nat had said something about it being a private’s uniform when he’d whined at her.

Dum Dum pretty much just went for the first thing that would allow him to keep his mustache _and_ wear a bowler hat; Charlie Chaplin. The less talked about the stains of dark hair dye all over the bathroom back at the house the better.

Morita’s in a vintage baseball player get-up and probably the most comfortably dressed of them all. He sports a classic Dodger’s road uniform and looks pretty damn smug about it. As a Californian, he’s already a life-long Dodgers fan, but being able to tote that uniform around is just adding insult to injury for the New Yorkers. It’s proudly marked with the large ‘B’ on the breast, denoting the team’s Brooklyn roots. More than a few of the Howlies have had their grandparents belabor the Dodgers’ move from to LA, and Bucky himself is intimately familiar with that rant. 

Gabe, being more sensible than any of them, is in a sharp vintage suit that makes him look almost offensively dapper (“they just said to dress like _in_ the 40s, not dress like _someone from_ the 40s!”). When _What the Well-dressed Man from Harlem Would Wear _starts playing_, _Gabe grins like his every birthday wish has come true. Dernier went full gangster, loaning some of Dum Dum’s clothes and carrying a toy gun around. It’s bright green; he hadn’t wanted to carry anything more realistic, what with the state of the nation being the mess that it is. 

And Monty…

Monty had taken to the theme like a duck to water and is wearing… well, Bucky doesn’t actually know which king he’s dressed up as, but he sure looks fancy in his dark military-style jacket and all his medals. Bucky is pretty sure he’s supposed to be English king, but it could be the Danish for all he knows. European royalty isn’t exactly Bucky’s area of expertise, and Monty had looked way too manically happy at the prospect of wearing it.

He hasn’t asked where Monty got the costume. It’s probably best not to.

Like the responsible (shut up) college students they are, the Howlies all fall upon the food as one. Normally, they’d be all over the bar first thing, but the day’s training session with Coach Phillips had been particularly brutal, so they’re both starving and slightly scared of what will happen if they try to get drunk on empty stomachs, though Bucky can take a guess: Monty would probably (definitely) start a fight, or at least a rumor that would get them in a fight at their next game; Morita would return with leaves in his hair and no idea of where he’d been; Dum Dum would watch ‘pets being reunited with their owners’ videos on youtube and cry; Dernier and Gabe would find a way to get arrested; and Bucky…

He’d probably end up married to a stranger or something. Drunk Bucky doesn’t live according to the laws of man, and he’s impulsive, needy, and has a hunger for bad decisions that gets him into the stupidest shit. Never mind that it shouldn’t be possible to get married to a stranger in a college town like this; Westchester is on guard for drunken idiotic decisions. But Drunk Bucky would manage it, despite the safeguards. Like that time with the piercer… 

Best to eat before drinking.

The canapés are delicious, the bread toasted to perfection, the paste creamy and savory. Bucky loves this food, especially the ones with flaky, buttery crust. He’d treat this canapé well, take it home and make it his life partner, make sweet love to it. How is bread so good? _Sweet baby Jesus_.

“Is that Carter?” Morita warbles through what appears to be sausage and mash.

Bucky looks up, his own cheeks hilariously distended like a chipmunk’s.

Peggy, like Gabe, has clearly taken the invite instructions to mean ‘like _in_ the 40s’, and is wearing a beautiful red collared dress that shows off her every curve to perfection. Her hair’s been carefully curled for the occasion, and she looks like every Old Hollywood dream. On her arm is a petite brunette wearing a blue dress and her hair in braids (_The Wizard of Oz _technically isn’t from the 40s, but Bucky’s willing to bet that no one remembers that). At Peggy’s other side is Nat, wearing a onesie and her hair done up under a scarf, a real Rosie the Riveter lookalike if there ever was one.

Coming through the door behind then are two men.

Bucky’s gaze lands on the taller one first. He’s in a full-on Frankenstein get-up, akin to that of Glenn Strange with the screws in his head and the green pallor to his skin. Like Dum Dum, he’s had dark hair dye applied liberally, though much less carefully than Dum Dum’s (who had Monty do it). He also appears to be truly injured rather than merely made-up to look so, wearing band-aids across his nose and around his fingers. He’s signing excitedly at the shorter guy.

Bucky looks at him.

First thing he notices is the golden hair.

_Oh._

The next thing is the officer’s dress uniform, green and beautiful and well-fitted to his short, slender stature.

_Oh, Lord._

The next thing is the way his grin lights up his whole face like the dawning sun.

_Oh, GOD._

Then the freckles across the bridge of his nose, the sweep of his slicked back hair in its neat side-part, the profile of his crooked nose, the beauty marks dotted across his beautiful face. Even the hearing aid in one of his ears, much more discreet than it used to be.

He turns his face and Bucky meets the sky-blue eyes of Steve Rogers for the first time in eleven-odd years.

So, of course, Bucky does the sensible thing to do when confronted with the boy he couldn’t stop talking about for years as a kid. He meeps and dives under the table.


	4. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's not the only disaster in the room, but he's maybe the most obvious one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of a 2 chapter update! this is 2/2

He nearly bowls over Scott who is likewise curled up under the table. Bucky hadn’t even seen him around. Quite a feat, given Scott’s absolute eye-sore of a candy-striped suit. Where the hell did he unearth that and can it be put back without them needing to go on a Jumanji-style quest first?

“What are you doing here?” Scott demands, wide-eyed and flushed.

“What do you mean what am I doing here, what are _you _doing here?”

“I asked you first!”

“I asked you second!”

They squabble for a moment more until the sound of someone laughing—guffawing would be the more accurate term, what with the snorting and everything—makes Scott freeze and flush even more, all dreamy-eyed.

He peers out between the folds of the tablecloth, sighing longingly. Bucky follows suit; all he sees is Steve and his heart jumps treacherously. Steve is looking around, a slight frown scrunching up his brows.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dum Dum asks, peering under the cloth.

Bucky’s not going to tell him. He’ll never live down the teasing. He can keep quiet—“_Steve Rogers_ is here!”

Dum Dum’s gawks. “Not—”

“_Yes!_”

One by one, the other Howlies appear, kneeling down to talk to him properly. They’re all babbling about Steve—which: what the fuck, has he talked about him to _everyone_? When? Why—oh God, Drunk Bucky is a menace. He’s going to move to fuckin’ Siberia.

“Stop making us look conspicuous!” he barks at the Howlies, as if his dive for cover was in any way _in_conspicuous in the first place. He turns to Scott, wary. “Do you know him, too?”

“Who?” Scott mumbles back, still peering out.

“Steve Rogers, the blond you’re looking at.” And mooning over, and Bucky’s not violent, he’s not, but he will challenge Scott right here, right now. This is _Steve_. God, it’s all so stupid, he doesn’t even know the guy, he could be the worst person on Earth, but fuck, he’s _so_ pretty.

Scott finally turns. “What? No. I’m looking at… um, well. Disaster Dude.”

“What.”

Scott points him out, and they peek out from under the table like children. Disaster Dude is the taller guy with Steve, the one with all the injuries. The moniker is probably appropriate. Actually, he’s kind of vaguely familiar…

“I think that’s Clint Barton,” Bucky says slowly.

“_Clint Barton_,” Scott repeats like he’s already composing notebooks full of hearts and pages and pages of _Clint + Scott Lang-Barton _in his mind’s eye.

“I think he’s my friend’s best friend or something, might’ve met him. I think.”

“How do you _forget _that you’ve met _Clint Barton_?”

“Cool it, Romeo, you didn’t even know his _name_. Which: how the fuck do you get like this over a fella you don’t even know the name of?” No one mentions that Bucky got like this after a single second of seeing Steve, so he’s allowed to ride this high horse around for another minute.

“He came into my workplace all the time this summer,” Scott reminisces, all starry-eyed and gross. Bucky’s never looked like this, ignore Dum Dum’s pointed look (the idiot still hasn’t moved from his crouched position). “The first time I saw him, he’d just walked right into the door. He bled all over the table while I fetched him napkins and crushed ice for his nose. He’s_ amazing_.”

“You literally called him Disaster Dude.”

Scott frowns. “That’s my future husband you’re talking about.”

“Jesus _fuck_.”

“Bucky?”

Neither Scott nor Bucky scream, _stop sniggering, Dum Dum_, or clutch at one another at the unexpected appearance of Peggy Carter. She looks between them, eyebrow raised in a highly judging tone of body language that Bucky absolutely will not tolerate. Even the way she holds up the tablecloth to see them is full of suspicion.

“Peggy!” he says in a voice that is way too cheery to be anything approaching casual. “How’re you doin’?”

Peggy narrows her eyes. “Fine, thank you. Are you going to introduce me or not?”

So Bucky hurries to introduce both Scott and the Howlies, all of whom are now halfway under the table once more, like a band of really stupid puppies with separation anxiety. Upon meeting Monty, Peggy and he lock eyes in the kind of instant friendship between people who _will _topple governments one day, and Bucky fears for his continued peace of mind, he truly does.

Peggy, deeply uncaring of Bucky’s reasons for being under a goddamned table in the first place, drags him out by the wrist. “Come on, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.”

He’s across the room from Steve Rogers in all his glory. Ten feet before impact. Five.

He’s standing right next to Steve Rogers and trying to pay attention to Peggy introducing him to Angie, ignoring his pounding heart and sweaty palms. Thank God that Angie’s got a glass in one hand and a bottle of something pink in the other, they don’t need to shake. It’d be unpleasant for both of them.

“And this is Steve,” Peggy is saying. “One of my best friends.”

“Hi,” Steve says in a surprisingly deep voice and Bucky is going to _die_.

At least, he can finally look at him, and it’s so much worse up close.

First of all, there’s a beauty spot on his face that disappears into the dimple of his cheek when he smiles. It deserves, roughly, one hundred poems written about it. Secondly, when Steve wriggles his fingers in a goofy little wave, his sleeve rides up and there’s a flash of color, and Bucky’s one and only purpose in life instantly becomes following that trail of color with his mouth. Thirdly, the top of Steve’s head barely reaches his chin, and Bucky wants Steve to curl into him and stay in his arms forever.

He must’ve been looking at Steve for too long without introducing himself, because Dum Dum unsubtly poke him in the side, making him squeak embarrassingly. Gabe hides his face in his hands, despairing.

By the grace of God, or more likely the Devil, Bucky manages to unearth the slightest amount of coolness from his inner well of calm-and-collected. “It’s so great to meet you at last.” Actually, strike the coolness.

Steve tilts his head. “‘At last’?”

_Abort mission._

Monty cuts in, and Bucky will happily guard his fucking flowers from Sir Quirrell _forever. _“We’ve been waiting to put a face to the name,” he says smoothly. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

“_Really_?” Steve says, eyes narrowing dangerously. Bucky’s not standing straighter. No, sir.

Monty goes on with the kind of bold-faced bravery that makes him an amazing captain of the Howlies and a truly merciless instigator in all other situations. “Oh, yes. Some of us went to that student exhibition last year, the one with the charcoal sketches, and I really liked your _Patroclus_ piece. Professor Keegan couldn’t stop raving about you when I asked about it.” Which: _what_. And also: Patroclus? Patroclus was the soft one from the Iliad, right? Steve has an interest in classics. _God, he’s probably so smart._

But back to the _what_. What exhibition. Why wasn’t he informed of this. How could Monty betray him like this.

“Oh!” Steve says, all sunshine again. “Thank you, it’s was a great project, I’m really proud of that one.” He glances up at Bucky, and it feels like being struck by lightning. “I’m sorry, but… have we met?”

The logical answer would be ‘no’. Of course, as Bucky sees it, they’ve not only met, but has had their fates intertwined. But Steve probably doesn’t remember his classmate’s brother’s name. Especially not when said classmate was never one of his close friends, much to Bucky’s pre-teen consternation. But once again, his mouth betrays him and he blurts out, “Yeah.”

Now everyone is staring.

“I mean, no!” he hurries to correct. Thank God for his tan, and the fact that his Barnes-genes are coming through to keep an otherwise embarrassing flush almost invisible. “I mean. You were in the same grade as my sister, Becca, back in elementary school, and I was there for the reception lunch… and stuff.” Siberia won’t be far enough; maybe the bottom of the ocean has some prime real estate, maybe next to an active volcano. Life as a mushroom on the ocean floor sounds suitably simple.

But wonder of wonders, Steve’s eyes widen with recognition, and he says, “Oh, you’re Bucky _Barnes._”

There’s a choir of angels singing. It sounds a lot like the Andrews Sisters singing _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_. 


	5. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky continues to be a disaster. then there's ice cream.

Sadly, Steve doesn’t remember Bucky for the same reasons that Bucky remembers Steve. This does not, however, mean that Bucky isn’t just as close to doing slow-motion victory laps around the room as he was before the whole thing got explained, his dignity be damned.

“There’s practically a local legend about you,” Steve says wryly. “I’m more surprised that you even remember who _I _am.”

“Oh, that’s just ‘cus_—” I think you’re my soulmate_ “—uuuuhhhh—”

No one helps Bucky get out of that one; the Howlies just let him blunder on, following their conversation much like you’d follow a tennis match. Why the fuck can’t he come up with anything? Bucky’s charming! He usually has people eating out of the palm of his hand by now! Why has God forsaken him in his hour of need?

Thankfully, a savior arrives in the form of whom Bucky later learns is Steve’s best friend, a tall, handsome guy called Sam Wilson. He’s dressed much like Dernier, in a dapper as hell striped suit and a cockily tipped fedora on his head. After a quick hi-how-are-ya, he drags Steve off for a beer pong match, citing their long-wished-for revenge on someone called Carol and Maria.

If Bucky stares after them like a wounded puppy, everyone’s kind enough to not mention it… for at least a few seconds. The Howlies are all over that interaction like white on rice, Natasha keeps grinning worryingly at him, and Peggy has a dangerous look in her eye that spells trouble. Oh shit, she _had _mentioned that she’d be introducing her first love. _Double shit. _

To save himself, he flees to the bar.

At the end of the night, Bucky hasn’t gotten Steve’s number, has barely even talked to him. It’s truly a tragedy to end all tragedies. The loss of his arm hadn’t hurt as much as this missed opportunity.

Instead, he spends all night working up to asking Steve to dance, but every time he tries to approach him, he always finds the timing to be wrong. Steve looks busy, Steve’s laughing with other people, Steve doesn’t look at the dancefloor even when Bucky’s putting some extra flair in his own dancing (seven years of ballroom dancing were good for something, thanks, Dad).

The list goes on and on.

And Steve just looks… he looks so damn good. That uniform fits him like a glove, makes it seem like his shoulders are wider, his hips narrower. He’s a short guy, but he walks like he’s six feet tall, head held high even when it seems as if the crowd and noise is getting to him, so much so that he strategically retreats to the edge for a breather before diving back in—Bucky’s not staring okay, he’s just observant. And comparing their costumes. Bucky’s wearing a triangular hat for God’s sake, it’s perfectly natural for him to envy Steve’s dress greens.

He’s not being creepy, okay? He’s not.

To make it worse (or better? Bucky can’t quite decide which it is), Steve makes eye contact a few times, but every time he drifts closer, someone always manages to drag either Bucky or Steve away at the last moment. Thus, Bucky’s in a corner most of the night, not talking to Steve despite the Howlies egging him on.

The one redeeming feature of the night is that Scott somehow manages to be even more of a disaster while chatting up Clint. Birds on cocaine have a better handle on mating displays than that guy has on conversational skills. It’s slightly horrifying. Even Monty is appalled.

Gabe is taking notes. He claims it’s for his psychology class and absolutely no one believes him.

*

It’s been three days since the party, and Bucky’s still moping.

However, he’d like to point out that it’s not just because of Steve. Bucky does have other things to worry about, much as everyone else seem to forget that in their zeal to encourage him to seek out Steve. They’ve never seen him fall so hard so fast, and it’s all they can talk about. You’d think he’d been a virgin monk up until now—which: he has not. He’s just very good at keeping his emotions on hold until he’s figured out what he wants from the other person.

So: it’s not just Steve on his mind.

In fact, on the list of things that keep him up at night are: his classes; making a fool of himself in front of Steve; his TA hours; not having had the guts to seek Steve out; Becca’s new boyfriend (how the hell does she have a boyfriend after just two weeks back at school?); Steve—

Okay, so maybe his moping is disproportionally focused on Steve. Whatever. 

It’s not even that he’s had no way to contact Steve. Natasha offered him Steve’s number in a burst of matchmaking glee, but while Bucky had nearly given in, the whole thing was too high school. What if Steve thought it immature that he’d had to get his number from someone else? What if Steve didn’t actually _want _him to have his number?

The spiral of doubt is endless.

Yesterday, he was so mopey that he let Sir Quirrell bamboozle him and steal his cookie right out of his hand. That’s the level of pathetic he’s at.

Thus, on this bright and early morning (or, well, kind of cloudy and late afternoon), Bucky’s sprawled over a table at the Westchester Malt Shoppe where Scott works (or is it _worked_? Scott’s a little vague on the details, but no one stops him when he clambers around behind the counter to serve their group, and Bucky doesn’t care as long as he gets ice cream).

Their mentoring session with Tony had run past overtime and right through lunch, not one of them noticing. Tony had only finally noticed because he was starting to hit a wall caffeine-wise and started getting distracted by absolutely everything, from questions about Bucky’s undergrad thesis to the dust motes glinting beneath the harsh, sterile light of their office lamps. Off-hand, Scott had mentioned the new coffee ice cream at the Malt Shoppe, and Tony had practically dragged them here. 

Not that they’d protested. Ice cream is a fine substitute for lunch. Shut up, it totally is.

Since their inception, the Malt Shoppe have been making their ice cream in-house, and it shows in not only the flavor and texture of their ice cream, but also the pride they take in their work, multiple award plaques decorating on the walls.

In addition, the shop has a nostalgic and homey feel to it that is worth the slightly higher prices. If it weren’t for the fact that the shop has been there as long as the university itself, you’d think it had been built when the first hipsters came sniffing around these parts. The aesthetic and décor are all focused on ecological sustainability, fair-trade dairy practices, and local trade (along with a notice board where the most popular notice is the poster for the huge, monthly farmer’s market. Bucky’s been a few times. It’s amazing).

In the fall, their bestselling flavors are: pumpkin spice, bourbon apple pie, caramel apple, s’mores, and a Halloween funfetti concoction that’ll be arriving in a month’s time. They’re all equally delicious, even if Bucky personally prefers their winter-flavors, especially cinnamon apple butter. 

Today, Bucky’s thrown himself at some giant cup-of-caramel-apple scoops that are both creamy and sugar-sticky. Scott’s gone the more traditional way with stracciatella and extra chocolate sauce, and Tony…

Tony’s chugging cappuccinos and eating an unfathomably large coffee affogato sundae. Which also has cappuccino in it. Bucky fears for that man’s heart, he really does.

As they eat, Scott stares into space with a soft smile on his face. “Clint usually sits by the window,” he tells them. “He used to sit by the door, but I guess that holds bad connotations for him now.”

Bucky swallows laboriously. “From walking into the door?”

“Oh, no. From all the times he’s been dumped while sitting there.”

A beat. Then Tony resurfaces from his coffee. “Are you saying Barton’s been dumped multiple times in here?”

“At least five. Three of them by the same girl.”

See, this is why Bucky needs to hang around Scott more. At least there’s one person who’s more of a disaster than he is when it comes to crushing on people. Speaking of disasters: maybe he should make friends with Barton. The man might be a walking safety hazard, but Natasha likes him, so he’s got to be at least slightly interesting. Also he knows Steve (_not _that that’s a deciding factor). (Okay, it’s a little bit of a factor).

The point is: Bucky could use more disaster friends.

The Howlies don’t count. They manage to appear almost competent most days. Or, most of them do. Sometimes. Gabe does. Morita, though that’s mostly when he’s not around the others; that way lies bad decisions.

In his back pocket, his phone vibrates angrily, and Bucky twists to pick it up. It a string of messages, one right on top of the other.

**Nat**: _you owe me for this james_

**Nat**: _favor to be determined later_

**Nat**: _also try not to freak out_

**Unknown**: _Hi, Bucky. I got ur number from Natasha, I hope that’s okay?_

**Unknown**: _This is Steve, btw_

**Unknown**: _Steve Rogers_

**Unknown**: _… u probably guessed that already, sorry_

Bucky flails so wildly he slaps Tony in the face with his metal hand. To his credit, Tony just jerks backwards, blinks, and then chugs more coffee while ignoring the red imprint blossoming across his cheek. “One slap equals one hour of me feeling that arm up, Barnes.”

Bucky mindlessly agrees, busy composing a totally cool, not at all awkward text.

**Me**: _Hi buddy_

Nailed it.


	6. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another day, another party.

“I know we’re all working real hard to make sure that the Sigma Taus know just what kinda losers they are, as per usual,” Bucky said patiently, staring at his fellow Howlies and their ragtag ΚΩΜ-brothers assembled in the living room in various states of sweaty and confused, “but the stakes are higher this year, folks. This place better be fucking flawless when the guests—”

“And by ‘guests’, he means Steve Rogers,” Dum Dum fills for those uninitiated in the great Barnes-Rogers Matchmaking Scheme. Which at this point, is maybe one person, if any.

“—_the guests _arrive.”

It’s the first week of October, and the Howlies (or rather, the Kappa Omega Mu fraternity) were throwing their time-honored Not-Halloween party to celebrate surviving the first month of term. Now, why would a fraternity be throwing a party at the Howlies’ place? That may or may not be because of the long-standing (read: three year) rivalry between the Howlies and the Sigma Tau Rho frat that had started with general distaste and ended with Monty spitefully filling out the forms to allow the Howlies to join the Greek Life society. Just to be able to properly kick Sigma Tau’s collective asses at the Campus Greek Life Championships, you understand how it is.

And that is how the ΚΩΜ frat was born.

It had been a bit of a hassle at first, but now, Bucky enjoys being part of a frat that has all the good parts (friendship, companionship, someone to bail Dernier out) and none of the bad (sexism, douche-baggery, and, oh yeah, Brock fucking Rumlow). None of the non-Howlie frat brothers live in the houses, but the frat is unorthodox enough that no one minds it. As long as they get invited to the parties, it’s all good.

The Not-Halloween party, however, is a tradition older than Bucky cares to remember—and no one’s quite sure why it’s called Not-Halloween, that explanation had gotten lost somewhere in the ‘80s.

It’s an almost brunch-like affair where people can come and have a good time without getting drunk. Everybody’s welcome, even the Sigma Taus—mostly so that the Howlies can rub it in their faces how well-liked the ΚΩΜ-events are on campus. The dress code is whatever the hell you want it to be, and the activities are largely super chill things like Mario Kart tournaments—and, of course, the famed eating competition that Dum Dum has won three years in a row.

Bucky usually doesn’t stress too much about it; it’s a first come, first served kind of affair, anyone can drop by, there’s a strict code of conduct (meaning: if you’re an asshole, you will get your ass thrown out _fast_), and people are usually pretty respectful—in no small part due to the Howlies being the vengeful sorts who _will _make your life a living hell if you aren’t.

But this year, it’s different.

This year, Steve is coming to the party.

To say that Bucky’s been a little anal-retentive is maybe not entirely inaccurate.

So far, everything has gone exactly according to plan. Gabe and Morita have been in the kitchen all morning, cooking up enough food to feed a whole contingent of Spartan warriors and their families besides; Monty’s been decorating the yard, turning it into something that looks like a frat’s version of an Austen-esque garden party (don’t ask about his choices, he _will_ tell you, at length); Dernier’s setting up the speakers and playlists, making sure there’s something for everyone; and Dum Dum is setting up the scoreboards for the competitions.

And Bucky? Bucky’s micromanaging it all.

An hour or so before noon, the first guests start arriving, and the noise level in the house quickly rises. They won’t be reaching levels that results in noise complaints, but with the amount of people in one place, the cacophony is to be expected.

Inside, it smells like bacon, sugar, and butter, and the Not-Halloween party has officially begun.

Bucky has taken up position near the entrance so that he’s able to spot Steve the second he comes through the door. Because the whole thing is casual in nature, he hasn’t been able to primp as much as he’d have liked to, but he’s still proud of his outfit: a red plaid over a soft, worn T-shirt (a size smaller than he usually wears), broken-in jeans, and a pair of much loved Converse that used to be white, yellow, red, and black, but now are scruffy, faded, orange, and navy-ish after years and years of wear and tear.

His hair, however. That took a whole hour to get to just the right kind of effortlessly tousled.

It’s past twelve now and he’s starting to get nervous. Steve had _promised _he’d be there, and while Bucky’s doesn’t actually know him that well, he trusts in that promise one hundred percent. After all, why wouldn’t Steve show up? They’ve been talking non-stop since those first texts; he’d have noticed if Steve were reluctant.

And can he just say: Steve is everything he’d ever thought and more. Mostly because the things he’d been thinking could be summed up in a series of non-sensical exclamation points and not actually a whole lot of adjectives.

But… this is the first time they’ll see each other after Tony’s party. There just hasn’t been time; Bucky had had to do a series of emergency TA-sessions after it finally hit his students that even if it was a beginner’s course you couldn’t just ignore the readings and hope for the best, and Steve had needed to put in extra hours in the studio for his upcoming project. (He’s deeply secretive about the subject, and Bucky’s about ready to expire from curiosity). 

It’s not that they haven’t seen each other, however. They’ve been running in to each other all over campus—which seems deeply unfair, why haven’t they met before?—but it’s been a rush of hi-hi-hello-bye-nows rather than anything proper. Bucky just wants to spend time with Steve, wants to know everything about him; is that too much to ask?

And at that exact moment, a big group of art majors walk in, Steve front and center.

Bucky sucks in a sharp breath. Not just because of nerves, but because that is assuredly _not_ casual clothing, _Steven Grant Rogers_, damn you. Sure, he’s wearing jeans; but they fit him perfectly, revealing that while he might be slender, there’s still some wiry muscle on him. And that shirt, God save and preserve him, it’s a short-sleeved button-up with a sunflower print, and Bucky needs to sit down.

But what really gets him? It’s not the subtle fade of his undercut—which: when the hell had Steve had time to get that anyway?—or the half-rim glasses, though those do make Bucky weak in the knees. But no. It’s the tattoos.

Bucky had known he had at least one. But there are _several._

With just a few of his top buttons undone, the tip of something geometric peeks out from under his shirt, placed right in the center of his chest—the sharp point of a star maybe. The flash of color Bucky had spotted at Tony’s party is an absolutely gorgeous watercolor rendering of Brooklyn Bridge framed by the sunrise, the half-sleeve splashed across his lower arm. Just below the shirt cuff on the opposite arm, there’s a half-obscured portrait and elaborate border on his shoulder, designed in a more classic style that reminds Bucky of old school sailor tattoos.

Bucky would’ve liked to have some time to pick his jaw off the floor, but Steve’s already barreling towards him, that big sunshine smile on his face.

“Bucky!” he says, breathless. “Hi!” And then, after a couple uncertain starts and stops, he _hugs_ Bucky. It’s nothing long or even full-body, just that semi-awkward squeeze that guys do, but it’s a hug and that’s all that matters. “These are my friends—guys, this is Bucky!”

Steve’s entourage is… quite large, but at least Bucky’s already met some of them. There’s Peggy and Angie—the former eyes Bucky with the same speculative look that she’s been employing all week; it’s unnerving as _fuck_—Natasha, Sam, Clint, and then some absolute god whom Steve introduces as Thor.

Jesus, it’s like a mountain became human and figured out how to smile.

“I brought a gift for our hosts,” the guy says in the weirdest accent Bucky’s ever heard. Is it Australian? Is it Swedish? Or is it British? No one knows. “To thank you for your hospitality.”

The gift is… Bucky doesn’t actually know what it is. Alcohol, yes, but what kind? The bottle is just a simple, opaque flask, and the liquid inside seems see-through.

“Thank you,” Bucky says nonetheless, because his Ma would surely know if he was being rude. She has that skill. Yes, even from across the state. 

“It’s _schnapps_,” Thor says proudly. “I brewed it myself—a stable at holiday parties in my country!”

“With a punch like moonshine,” Steve mutters under his breath. He looks at the bottle with trepidation. Thor just beams.

When Bucky asks him where he brewed it—not because he doesn’t trust Thor, it’s just that he’s curious!—Thor waves his hands excitedly and babbles about borrowing a lab. Which must mean that he’s a science major; the labs are notoriously impossible to get access to unless you have very, very good reason. Homebrew would not be one of them.

“No, no, I’m doing drama and comparative literature,” Thor explains.

Bucky narrows his eyes. “But… how did you get into the labs then?”

Thor’s demeanor changes at once, going sort of ditzy and wide-eyed. “What, like that’s hard?” he says in a surprisingly accurate Valley girl accent.

Steve pokes Bucky in the arm, demanding that he be taken to the buffet or he’ll surely starve. He says this with so much conviction that Bucky can’t help but laugh. Steve pouts all the way to the kitchen while Peggy rolls her eyes behind their backs, hiding a smirk. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 1/3 of today's update


	7. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the plot thickens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> triple update! this is part 2/3!

“So I gotta ask,” Steve says after both he and Bucky have made a concentrated effort to eat as much as possible in between snippets of conversation. They’ve been suspiciously undisturbed all this time, but no way is Bucky going to question his good fortune. “What’s with the chair?”

The chair in question is an ugly, old armchair in the corner of the living room. For the party, it’s been sealed off behind crime scene tape that Bucky specifically hasn’t asked Dernier where he got, just in case he stole it from the police station rather than buy it in a party favor store like a _normal person_.

“That’s Sir Quirrel’s chair,” Bucky says. Steve quirks a brow. “He’s sort of our mascot?”

Steve blinks, a small smile on his face. “For the frat or the Howlies?”

“Sort of both? Like, yeah, we got the official wolf for the team and stuff, but Sir Quirrel could probably take him. Little bastard’s got guts, I gotta give him that.”

“Do you think I’ll get to see him?” Steve looks around. “I love animals.”

“Nah, he normally stays away from larger gatherings like this. But even if you do, please don’t try to pet him. He’s not real friendly, and I kinda like you unscarred.” See! He can be smooth!

Steve winches. “I’m gonna have to disappoint you on that account.” 

_Shit! Abort!_

Steve pulls at his shirt, widening the gap a little so that Bucky can look down his front. For a second, he’s brain’s pretty much leaking out his ears, so focused on the beautiful star tattoo on Steve’s chest that he doesn’t even notice the vertical scar. And then, it’s all he can see. 

Surprised, he reaches out as if to touch it, pulling his hand back at the last moment. Steve, thankfully, doesn’t notice, looking down at well. He had heart troubles as a kid, he explains, and when he was eighteen, his physician had grown worried about his continued health, so they’d decided to risk surgery. It was a long, difficult ordeal, he says, but it’s made his life so much easier.

Sure, he still has asthma. And allergies. And scoliosis. And—

Point is, at least his _heart_ isn’t trying to kill him anymore. 

“I know a little about difficult surgeries,” Bucky says, waving his metal hand.

Steve doesn’t flinch, but his eyes do linger on the prosthetic. “I heard about that when it happened,” he admits, looking up at Bucky almost stubbornly. “My Ma was… she was on shift in the ER when you came in and I—I’d just dropped off her dinner, and when they wheeled you in, I—I was there, I saw you on that gurney and I—”

Bucky winces. “I’m sorry—”

“_Don’t_. That’s not why I’m telling you, _fuck_, I’m doing this all wrong! What I mean is… what you went through, the way you came back after, no sweat, no nothing, like your metal arm had always been a part of you—it gave me the courage to go through my surgery. And I just wanted you to know that.”

You could knock Bucky out with a feather. “But—you didn’t seem like you knew me at first, at Stark’s party?”

Steve flushes—he doesn’t flush pretty or evenly, but in big, red splotches on his cheeks and neck. “Yeah, I… I didn’t wanna be creepy and scare you off, but… I knew you the second I saw you.” He fiddles nervously, not looking at Bucky. “I made it weird, didn’t I?”

Bucky wants to assure him that no, he didn’t make it weird, absolutely not. Bucky’s been doing that just perfectly on his own with his immediate crush, but that’s not the sort of thing you admit after two weeks. It’s too much, too fast. But he has to say something, has to put Steve at ease. “Well,” he says with a smirk. “I’d had my suspicions, you know.”

Steve frowns. “What suspicions?”

“You gonna make me say it?”

“_Bucky_.”

“You, Steve Rogers,” Bucky proclaims in his best (worst) posh accent. “Are an absolute dork. You’ll fit in just fine.”

A beat. Then, Steve bursts out laughing, like he’d done the first time Bucky saw him, throwing his head back with his hand on his chest. “You’re the absolute worst, you know that right?”

“Eh. It’s part of my charm.”

“Sure, Buck.” Bucky’s heart soars. He’s never had his nickname shortened like that; Steve has his own nickname for him! “You keep telling yourself that.”

It’s easy after that, talking with Steve. Not that it had been hard before, but there’d been that slight tension of Bucky not knowing what to do with himself, parts of himself that he held back, jokes he didn’t tell or questions he didn’t ask for fear of Steve judging him. Now, it’s like a barrier has come down, and he can’t stop talking, only pausing for breath or Steve’s input, his entire being lit up with the joy of being here with him.

It’d be easy to just sit in their corner the rest of the day, closed off from the world, but Bucky _wants _Steve to see just how much he and the Howlies have put into the party. They wander around, checking out the competitions and saying hello to newcomers. Scott’s shown up with three of his friends, and they find Kurt at the Ping-Pong table, mercilessly crushing Dave who mutters curses about it, while Luis alternatively talks smack and blabbers about absolutely anything to anyone standing still long enough (Steve and Bucky gets drawn into a conversation about post-structuralist subjectivity).

In the living room, Thor is flirting with Bruce Banner, who looks shell-shocked to have his attention (Thor has two types of people he crushes on, Steve tells Bucky, women who can and will kick his ass, and insanely clever people). Peggy, Angie, and Monty are looking all-together too self-satisfied on the couch, playing Mario Kart like their lives depend on it, Natasha is draped across Sam’s back like a cat, and Scott is gesturing wildly while talking to Clint (“When did Scott start learning ASL?” I dunno, maybe a couple weeks ago, why? “’Cus he’s either very forward, or his teacher is shit.”)

On the lawn, the eating contest has begun. Morita plays the part of judge, carefully watching the two final contestants to make sure no one cheats. Dum Dum is, unsurprisingly, one of them, but his opponent is a surprise; a dainty, pink-clad girl with blond hair and the apparent ability to unhook her jaw and swallow hamburger patties like a snake swallowing mice.

Tony’s off to the side with Rhodey, both of them watching in horrified fascination. 

Wandering away from the spectacle, Steve asks for directions to the bathroom. “Just gotta test my blood sugar levels,” he says, so Bucky directs him to one of the upstairs bathrooms where it’s a tad more peaceful than downstairs, the Howlies having cordoned off the upstairs prior to the party.

Meanwhile, Bucky hangs around the kitchen, sorting his and Steve’s drinks (cherry coke for him and diet coke for Steve). He’s all alone, everybody else too busy with the competitions and full up on food and drink besides.

That’s when it happens.

“Barnes,” a familiar, much despised voice says. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“It’s my fucking house, Rumlow,” Bucky says, straightening to meet his nemesis’ eyes.

Okay, maybe nemesis is taking it a bit far. But it’s not exactly inaccurate either. Bucky Barnes and Brock Rumlow have hated one another from the first. Bucky literally can’t think of a single person in the world who he’d rather wish eternal Bump Your Toe Against Sharp Edges in the Night Syndrome on.

Rumlow sneers back, coming in close. Bucky holds his ground, unintimidated. “I see you haven’t updated a single thing since last year. Getting soft, are we?”

“If it ain’t broke. But you wouldn’t know about that.”

Much later, Bucky’ll remember this as the point where it all went south, the point that marked the start of the stupidest charade in all his life. On one hand, he can see why it happens the way it does; he and Rumlow are standing real close, the whole thing could definitely be misconstrued as flirting—that is, if it weren’t for the disgust plain on Bucky’s face.

(There’s also the fact that while Rumlow is a complete and utter dick, he’s at least not homophobic. Sexist and misanthropic, sure, and he’s got more than a few internalized complexes which manifest in him being the kind of heteroflexible fella who doesn’t care which hole he sticks his dick in. Especially not if he can turn it into a question of dominance).

So yeah, it definitely looks like Rumlow’s trying to sell something that Bucky really isn’t buying.

That’s when Steve walks in.

Bucky, facing the door, sees him before Rumlow does. Steve stops dead in his tracks, eyes bouncing between the two of them for a second, and then, oh, _then_. That’s when the light of righteousness settles in his eyes, and he marches right up to Bucky, slipping his arm around him with a casual, “Did you get the drinks, baby?” Then he stares at Rumlow. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”

Okay, maybe _that’s_ when it goes to shit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i repeat: this is part 2/3 of today's update!


	8. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the worst plan in the history of bad plans is made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> triple update! this is part 3/3!

“Who the fuck are you?” Rumlow demands while Bucky’s brain tries desperately to get back to functional levels. Anytime now!

Steve, heedless of Bucky’s internal meltdown, replies, “I’m Steve Rogers. Bucky’s boyfriend.”

Rumlow looks Steve up and down, lip curled. He’s close Bucky’s height, so Steve barely reaches his chin, and while Steve’s wiry, it comes off as simply skinny. Usually, people react with something like unease at getting that look from Rumlow—but not Steve. He just looks vastly and intensely unimpressed.

At this point, the only thing Bucky hears is white noise. A screaming, high-pitched sort of white noise. Really, can you blame him? Not only did Steve call himself his boyfriend (which: that’s the fucking dream), but he did it in front of _Rumlow. _

Rumlow, whom Bucky and the Howlies have to compete against.

Rumlow, whom Bucky actually has to see a whole lot of over the next couple of weeks.

Rumlow, _whom Steve just lied to. _

Bucky tunes back in just as Rumlow’s sneer becomes a smirk and something undoubtedly stupid and rude leaves his mouth. At least, that’s what Bucky assumes. Given that Steve just steps the fuck up and fucking _headbutts_ him right in the chin, _what is happening_.

“You _bitch_!” Rumlow curses, socking Steve on instinct.

Steve stumbles back, nose dripping. Bucky sees red. He’s already got his hand pulled back for a blow when Steve’s back up, and he’s _swinging_. He might be smaller and slighter, but there’s no stopping a guy who’s got sheer unholy rage on his side, and Bucky barely manages to drag him off.

Rumlow, having finally had a stroke of good sense, quickly backs out of the room, probably to call for backup. So, Bucky does what he must; he grabs Steve around the waist and carries him upstairs over his shoulder, not even looking around to see if anyone’s staring.

Steve looks a nightmare, blood gushing from his nose. Bucky forces toilet paper on him, mouth running on autopilot as the shock settles in. Steve just got in a fucking fight, Jesus fucking Christ, “—what were you thinking! He’s got at least a hundred pounds on you, oh God, your nose—”

“It’s not broken,” Steve says nasally, carefully prodding at it.

“It could be, Steve! How would you even know?”

“Does my nose look like it’s never been broken before? That’s a first.”

“_Steve!_”

Steve takes to Bucky’s fussing with ill grace, arguing every step of the way. He doesn’t need painkillers, no, there’s no need to go to the ER, no, stop that, Buck, come on, what was he supposed to do, just let Rumlow talk to Bucky like that, what did he take him for?

But then, Bucky hits the crux of their current problem; Steve’s lie. Steve goes curiously silent when Bucky starts rambling about him having to face Rumlow in close quarters, Rumlow likely having spread the lie all over by then. _So, we’ll keep pretending_, Steve says stubbornly, and Bucky pales. Fuck, if the Howlies find out—

“So, we’ll tell ‘em first.”

“Um, no, we absolutely will _not_.” Oh, God, the Howlies would be all over this, and not in a good way. They’d either a) try to encourage Bucky to keep up the charade and thus court Steve or some such nonsense, or the far more likely b) tear him a new one for going with this while his heart is on the line.

Steve’s eyes narrow. “I know why we’re not telling my friends, but what’s your excuse?”

“They—wait. Why aren’t we telling your friends?”

Steve glares. “You first.”

Okay, so here’s where Bucky fucks up, he’ll admit that. Everything from here on out is his fault, but he would like the record to state that Steve started it, and never since this moment has Bucky ever backed down when it comes to Steve Rogers. It’s one of those moments where you either come clean (not going to happen; he _cannot_ tell Steve that he’s already half-planning their wedding, that’s just _insane_) or tell a lie that won’t just dig you into a deep, dark hole, it’ll dropkick you into the goddamn abyss.

And Bucky. Well, Bucky obviously can’t be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to Steve. “They can’t know,” he says slowly, letting the lie really sink into his chest before he utters it. “’Cause I’ve been trying to get over—someone, and they’ve been trying to set me up, and this will get them to stop.”

Steve’s quiet, blinking owlishly at Bucky. His nose has largely stopped bleeding, but his shirt will be ruined unless he soaks it soon. “We can’t tell your friends,” he recaps. “Because they’ll keep trying to set you up, and you’re not over someone?”

“Yes!” _God, strike me down_. “But what about your friends?”

Steve’s eyes widen. “Um. Well. I kinda, uh, I have a… tendency to do things that Sam would call ‘idiotic’ and Peggy would call ‘stupidly reckless’, and I kinda, sorta promised that I wouldn’t get into a fight again after—anyway, um, yeah, if you were my boyfriend, they’d understand why I had to.”

“So we can’t tell your friends… because they’ll, what, ream you out for fighting?” Steve mutters about Bucky not knowing the excruciating pain of being subjected to one of Peggy and Sam’s lectures or he’d understand.

It is, hands down, the stupidest thing Bucky’s ever heard, but it’s not like he can throw stones from his dainty little glasshouse, now, is it?

“So we can’t tell our friends,” Bucky recaps. “And we have to keep pretending because Rumlow will have told everyone by now. So, what? We’re gonna fake date?”

Steve shuffles his feet, wiping at his nose with a damp towel. “I mean. If you want to. We can just say we’re trying it out, yeah? Your friends will see that you’ve… you’ve moved on from, like, whoever, and mine won’t blow this out of proportion.”

That’s not going to happen. The future flashes before Bucky’s eyes and it is horrifying; the Howlies are going to tease Bucky about Steve the second they see them, Steve will _know _about his crush_, _Bucky will have lied for nothing, and Steve’s going to be mad, or disgusted, or never want to see him again.

And so, they come up with a plan.

The plan is simple. The second Steve turns away, Bucky’s going to text the Howlies and tell them that he and Steve are A Thing (capitalization and everything), but that he’s not ready for Steve to know just pathetic Bucky’s been for him, so they better fucking _not _say _anything_ (Steve doesn’t know about this part of the plan). Then, they’re going to pretend. Pretend so hard that they’ll qualify for an Oscar at the end of it.

And maybe… maybe Steve will start looking at Bucky differently. Maybe he’ll start to think of him as someone who can be more than just his fake boyfriend. Like his real boyfriend. Like someone to spend the rest of his life with.

Okay, that’s getting ahead of himself, but a boy can dream.

But first things first; Steve needs to get out of that shirt and let it soak. Bucky knows just how to keep the bloodstains from becoming permanent (he grew up with three sisters, and he was home alone with Becca the day she got her first period and almost ruined her favorite jeans, he knows how to get bloodstains out of clothes, okay?).

While Steve’s busy changing into one of Bucky’s shirts, Bucky hits up the ΚΩΜ-Howlie group chat.

**Me**: _Okay, so steve and i are a thing, don’t make a big scene, i haven’t told him everything yet and i don’t wanna scare him off so BE NICE OR I SWEAR TO GOD_

**Gabe**: _What the Hell, Rumlow wasn’t lying??_

**Morita**: _lol like you can hide it_

**Dernier**: _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

**Monty**: _HOLY FUCK IT’S HAPPENING _

**Dum Dum**: _asdfhjk_

He’ll take that as tacit agreement. Pocketing his phone, he turns around just as Steve comes back out, also slipping his phone into his back-pocket. His glasses have miraculously survived the encounter with Rumlow, not even a scratch. He’s wearing one of Bucky’s old baseball shirts from his high school years, one that Bucky can’t even fit in after the surgery but has kept out of nostalgia. Steve’s tucked the front into his jeans, made it look like he’d planned to wear it. It’s oversized (but not by that much) and he looks… he looks like Bucky’s, has the name Barnes across his shoulders and sewn across his heart (well, breast pocket).

If there was ever a poem to explain this feeling, whatever rhyme scheme it has, that’s the rhythm of Bucky’s heartbeat right now, something free verse maybe, something unexpected and so, so beautiful.

Steve grins, a little flushed, and Bucky’s helpless to do anything but smile back.

And so, it really, truly begins.


	9. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kiss and a shakespearean dick joke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm an english major, of course i'm gonna make a goddamn shakespearean dick joke

The first bump in their clearly flawless masterplan is not one Bucky had expected. He’d expected having to ham it up a bit for the Howlies, to not seem like a lovestruck fool to Steve’s friends, or to battle his own ass-over-tits crush on Steve to make it work between the two of them. Maybe convince Steve to give them a shot afterwards, if it didn’t all go down in flames before then. Even fighting Rumlow and whatever backup he’d managed to assemble was on his list of likely scenarios.

But nope, their first bump is actually Steve himself.

They don’t even make it down the stairs.

Actually, they don’t even make it from Bucky’s room. Just as Bucky turns to lead Steve back down, Steve’s eyes widen and he pales, then pulls Bucky back into the safety of his room. “Are you even—” he asks, flapping his hands. “You know.”

Bucky squints. “What?”

“_You know_.”

“Steve, are you okay?” Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s forehead.

“_Stop that,_ I’m fine. Okay, so. What I meant to ask was: are you even into men? I kinda just sprung this on you, I’m so sorry—”

“Steve, no, calm down. Yes, I’m into men. I’m bisexual, the Howlies and brothers all know. We’re not gonna have to navigate a coming out or anything.” A beat. “Are we? Steve?”

Steve’s wincing, shuffling his feet. “No! I am theoretically into men, too. I mean, I’m—I’ve. Oh, God, _fuck_. It’s a recent sort of development—not my sexuality! Or being into men! But, um, it’s maybe been more… not really something I’ve ever thought about before and kinda fleeting and I maybe never really discussed it, ‘cause I wasn’t sure, and I’ve always been more drawn to women, so I thought it was just fantasies and—”

“Stevie, hey, easy. Look at me.” Bucky, brave, puts his hands on Steve’s slim shoulders, holding him steady. Steve’s eyes are the prettiest blue in the world, like the summer sky. Bucky could get lost in them forever. “Breathe with me. Then, let’s try that again.”

Steve breathes slow, an almost wheeze. “I’m into men. But… I’ve never really had the opportunity to try it out. My friends know.”

“Oh.” Bucky wants to say something stupid like _I’m your first? _Like he’s really Steve’s first anything. His heart needs to shut up and go lie down. “Okay. That’s fine. I’ve always been more into men than women myself, so I getcha.”

Steve’s eyes fill with hope. “So, you don’t think it makes me less… bi? It not being a fifty-fifty sort of thing?”

“Hell, no, Stevie—look, your preferences are your own. Bisexuality just means attraction to two or more genders, the not equal attraction to _every single person _on earth. Not even pansexual people are attracted to every single person, they have preferences, too. Gravitating towards one gender more than the others doesn’t make you less bi.”

“But… what if they can tell?”

“What if who can tell what?”

“You know, Rumlow and his friends can tell… that I’ve never kissed a guy. Much less been in a relationship with one. What if they _know_? What if I blow it? What if this whole thing falls apart because of me and they’ll know, and they’ll take it out on you and—”

“Stevie! Easy, buddy. You’re getting a bit far ahead. Look, we’ll do this at your pace, yeah? They won’t be able to tell; they’ll just think we’re not as into PDA or somethin’. It’s gonna be okay, I promise you.” _I’m gonna _make_ it okay_.

“It’s just—fuck, I know it’s stupid, okay? I just feel like my inexperience is gonna blow the whole thing. Like, what do I even do? What if I do it wrong?”

Bucky’s hands are still on Steve’s shoulders, thumbs moving idly and creasing Bucky’s old shirt. He can’t feel the threads with his metal hand, but he feels pressure and warmth and that’s enough. “You can’t do it wrong. I swear it, Stevie. Just treat me like you’d treat any partner, like you did in the kitchen. Besides, look at it this way: now you won’t have to go through the whole ‘first time being with a guy’ with any guy you actually wanna be with.”

Steve tilts his head. “Are you saying I should look at you as a form of practice?”

Now would be a good time for Bucky’s brain to kick in and say ‘no’. Which is of course why Bucky’s brain goes entirely offline. “Yeah, if you wanna. Practice on me all you want.” _What the shitstains, brain_?

Steve sets his jaw and squares his shoulders. “Alright. Okay, let’s do this.” Then, as they’re walking back out, he slips his hand into Bucky’s, pulls him to another stop. “Are you usually into PDA?”

“Um.” Bucky’s never actually had anything long-term, but even his hook-ups have gotten some level of PDA from him. It’s not entirely a lie when he says, “Sure. But we don’t have to if you’re not into that.”

“No, I am. So we should be, too, right?”

“Stevie, you don’t have to push yourself—”

“How do you like to be kissed?”

A great many things happen and Bucky is aware of none of them; not the dust motes dancing in the sunlight, the bass of the music downstairs, the cheering of the crowd outside. Bucky’s soupy mess of a brain is going down the drain, never to be seen again. Steve’s standing there in Bucky’s shirt, looking all stubborn and earnest, nose and cheek starting to bruise, hair all messy like Bucky’s run his fingers through it. Bucky’s mouth is dry, his flesh hand sweaty.

“Sweet,” he croaks.

Steve steps in, leans up on his toes. Bucky would love to have kept his eyes open, but this feels so much like a dream that he has to close them and pray to a God he’s never really put any faith in until then.

Steve’s lips are tentative, but not reticent, just a little shaky. It’s just a sweet, sweet kiss, not a peck and not dirty in the least. He takes Bucky’s lower lip between his and pulls at it a little, and the sound alone could send Bucky spinning into the stratosphere. He’s dead, he’s pretty sure, and this is some kind of divine gift bestowed upon him. 

“Like that?” Steve asks when he’s pulled away, a little nervous again, eyes flittering between Bucky’s own, his lips, the wall.

Struck dumb, Bucky can only nod. When Steve finally pulls him toward the staircase, he follows quietly, unable to tear his eyes away. Part of him is berating himself for getting into this mess; the other is choreographing the first dance at their wedding.

Not humming the wedding march as they walk back downstairs is the real trial here. 

*

Downstairs, there’s the expected amount of ribbing, but thankfully no Rumlow. The Howlies fall all over themselves trying to keep it contained and yet come up to grin manically at Steve and Bucky, eyeing their entangled hands and nudging one another like they’re in any way subtle. Steve’s messy hair and change of shirt doesn’t help. 

Steve’s friends are just as bad. Natasha keeps looking like she’s going to do a supervillain cackle, Thor and Clint beam at nothing, and Peggy and Sam fuss, as expected, while eyeing Bucky with something that can generously be termed cautiousness, Sam more so than Peggy. They seem happy for Steve though, and that’s all that matters.

Having been reassured upstairs, Steve’s a fucking spitfire. He leans into Bucky, looks at him like there’s no one else in the room, makes innuendos like they’re going out of style. It makes Bucky stutter and flush, trying to not just stare back dazedly. Or smell his hair. It’s so much harder faking a relationship when you want to be in that relationship but can’t give it away.

It’d seemed to easy when they’d planned it, so recklessly, stupidly easy. Like something out of a movie. But those movies all have horribly awkward moments, don’t they? The first (bad) kiss, the forced (uncomfortable) intimacy, the sex that fucks it all up, the public revelation of whatever thing they were hiding with their fake relationship in the first place.

And then he’d told that stupid lie about getting over someone.

Really, he has no one but himself to blame for this mess. Okay, maybe Steve a bit. Rumlow. But himself most of all.

“I’m gonna get us drinks,” he says and flees when the urge to pin Steve to a wall and kiss him to within an inch of his life gets too overwhelming.

It is a tactical mistake.

Because when he comes back, Steve’s caught in a conversation with some annoying douchebag that Bucky’s thankfully never even thought about sleeping with, despite the guy’s tenacity. Douchebag is eyeing Steve like he’s something he’s stepped in with suede loafers. He’s sneering, too, and that’s the last straw. No one looks at Steve like that.

Bucky elbows his way through the crowd, only to hear Steve’s voice rise above the din. “Well, you know that old Shakespearean saying? ‘_Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some_—” he catches Bucky’s eye and grins salaciously, “—_have greatness thrust upon them_’. I wasn’t born great, but you might say I’m at the cusp of achieving greatness, artistically speaking, and I absolutely yearn to have greatness thrust upon me this night_._”

“Steve!” Bucky gasps, gaping theatrically.

Bucky’s dumbass fake-boyfriend just laughs like a hyena while the douchebag slinks away. Bucky mutters half-hearted curses under his breath, the ‘punks’ and ‘troublemakers’ interspersed with a single, adoring ‘sweetheart’ that Steve hopefully doesn’t notice. Or if he does, at least thinks it’s all part of the game.

Their friends at least seem to be eating it up.

“Come on, Buck, that guy was asking to be taken down a peg!”

“I can’t take you anywhere, I swear to God.”

“You _haven’t_ taken me anywhere, you jerk.”

Bucky cocks his head. “Are you askin’ me to take you on a date, Rogers?”

“Does a fella really have to _ask_ to be taken on a date by his boyfriend, Barnes?”

Bucky, knocked out of their bickering by the casual mention of him as a ‘boyfriend’, blurts out much to honestly, “Go on a date with me, Stevie.”

Steve, none the wiser, just beams at him. “Sure thing, Buck.”

If Bucky scatters tender-timid kisses over Steve’s shirt-clad shoulders for the rest of the day to hide his soft smile, both pained and proud, no one’s the wiser. They just coo at them, and Steve kisses his hair in return and draws shapes on his hands, his arms, so if Bucky’s not up to keeping his mask on, well.

He’s excused, isn’t he?


	10. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first date, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i live!  
i shoulda just titled this fic 'Bucky Barnes is a mess'.

“What do you mean you’re not taking Steve anywhere fancy?” Dum Dum asks Bucky as they’re catching their breaths in between games.

“Uh, I mean pretty much exactly that, which part is giving you problems?”

It’s a typical New York fall day—meaning that the temperature has dropped to imitate early winter conditions rather suddenly after weeks of mostly sunshine. Of course, this has happened on a day where they all needed to be outside for the first part of the Greek Life Championships, this year starting off with a basketball tournament.

The Howlies and their brothers are all bundled up as much as possible while still being able to play and not overheat. Bucky’s regretting wearing a thermal shirt; he gets crazy warm when doing exercise but going shirtless would _not _be a good idea. (This desire has nothing to do with wanting to show off for Steve. Bucky just likes being shirtless. You can’t prove anything.)

Speaking of Steve, he looks gorgeous sitting in the part of the stands reserved for significant others and current flirts. He’d confessed to not following sports much beyond Dodgers baseball games—which Morita will not stop crowing about, damn him—but he’d insisted on being present for every single second nonetheless.

There are blue streaks in his hair (“Thor said he had to practice, don’t ask me why, I didn’t ask him, I’m not sure I want to know what he gets up to when we’re not around.”) that not even the beanie he’s sporting can hide completely. The beanie has an extremely soft pompom at the top. It’s so cute Bucky wants to just lie down and die.

Steve’s also wearing a chunky, maroon-and-moss cable-knit sweater, Bucky’s parka coat, dark jeans (and possibly thermal long-johns, it really is cold as fuck), and a pair of well-worn leather Doc Marten’s that’s giving Bucky conniptions and not just because he wants a pair for himself. His scarf and gloves match, it’s disgustingly adorable. He looks like an undercover Christmas elf.

He also keeps waving at Bucky whenever he looks up to check whether Steve’s still there. Logically, he knows Steve wouldn’t just leave, but logic has long since left Bucky’s life, it’s just impulses and meltdowns from here on out. Also, if Dum Dum snickers at him waving back like a dork _one more time _then Bucky is going to do something really drastic.

“I mean,” Dum Dum says, somewhat pompously, “that if you really wanna woo him, you don’t take him to the fuckin’ bagel shop.”

“We’re New Yorkers, showing someone your favorite bagel shop _is _wooing. Also, how about you take your own counsel do something about that girl, what’s her name—Irina?”

“That ‘girl’ is a bear in disguise, Bucky, I can’t just ask her to have dinner with me!” Dum Dum whisper-shouts, shooting a not-at-all-covert glance at the part of the stands where the more general crowd sits. The short, wide-shouldered girl who beat out Dum Dum in the eating contest is slumped there, most of her attention on the book in her lap rather than the game itself. It’s only when Dum Dum has the ball that she looks up—and how the hell does she just know he has the ball when she’s not watching? The look she gets is really intense, a little daunting actually, but Dum Dum’s both clueless and hopelessly charmed by her odd manner.

Bucky would call it pitiful if he wasn’t himself currently embroiled in a goddamn fake-dating scheme with the love of his life (speaking of, if this works out, would Steve want to keep his own last name if they got married? Or hyphenate? Or, _sweet baby Jesus_, take Bucky’s? Or let Bucky take his, Bucky’s cool with whatever).

“But that’s beside the point,” Dum Dum keeps going, running out onto the court at the sound of the whistle. “You need to up your game, Barnes.”

“You need to stop trying to be my romantic coach, Dugan.”

Dum Dum sighs. “You give me no choice. Remember, you brought this on yourself.”

Bucky would ask what he’s on about, but Steve chooses that moment to wolf-whistle at Bucky, and he can’t just let that pass. He spins around, leering, and winks at Steve, making his fake-boyfriend cackle and pretend to swoon. Good thing Sam’s there to catch him, because the swoon turns into a stumble. Graceful he is not, the dope.

Brock Rumlow sneers from the side-lines, but he can’t do shit.

They’re not up against the Sigma Taus just yet, so no one’s yet gotten yelled at by Monty for not paying enough attention—though both Dum Dum and Bucky are on thin ice. Bucky takes his position as shooting guard confidently, shaking out his limbs. _The bagel place is fine_, he tells himself. _No need to come on too strong, gotta be subtle. _Besides, it’s already going to be awkward as hell pretending that on one hand, it’s a date (as far as their friends are concerned), on the other, not a date (as far as Steve is aware), and on the third mutant hand, it’s hopefully a date anyway (if Bucky is allowed to wish for anything, that is). 

Bucky learns what Dum Dum had meant when Monty comes crashing into him, nearly bowling him over. “_What do you mean you’re taking Steve to the bagel place?_” he whisper-screeches, wild-eyed. Someone has let him have sugar. It was probably Dernier, that rat-bastard enabler.

*

So that’s how Bucky ends up taking Steve to Giacomo’s out on the edge of town. It’s a cosy little Italian place that’s been around for almost as long as the university itself, and it’s got the kind of kitschy-homey flair that is at once overwhelming and welcoming. The walls are nearly indistinguishable beneath the memorabilia and knick-knacks, there are chequered tablecloths on every table, and the main source of light is from candles.

“It’ll knock his socks off,” Monty had said with manic intensity as he made the reservations. Because apparently, they don’t trust Bucky to make his own reservations on his own damn fake-date. “The ambiance, the setting, the food, now you just need to bring the charm. Do we need to go over conversation topics?”

“Please, stop talking,” Bucky had begged.

“I think it’s needed,” Dernier had said, and then they’d all had to sit through a PowerPoint presentation on dating etiquette. If Gabe kills them all for wasting his time, it’ll be well deserved, and no court of law will find him guilty. 

It’s way too much for a first date, but at least it allows Bucky to dress up. He’d spent over an hour getting ready, going back and forth between clothes so much that even Gabe developed a nervous tick. In the end, Bucky has settled on a brand-new print shirt—Steve likes print, especially the slightly dumb ones, so the little pink flamingos will hopefully be endearing—a pair of grey slacks, his long, tan coat, and the brogue dress boots. Yes, he has dress boots. Every man should have at least one pair, no, he doesn’t have a shoe obsession, _three pair of dress boots should be the standard, dammit_. 

And yet, no matter how much time Bucky spent getting ready, seeing Steve makes him wish he’d spent even more. He’s wearing a _waistcoat_. Bucky’s going to _die. _

And then he nearly does, because Steve takes one look around and says, “Oh, _fuck._”

“What? What’s wrong?” Bucky asks, shoulders tensing with fight-or-flight.

Steve pulls him into the coatroom, flailing wildly. “Sharon Carter and her girlfriend are here! She’s Peggy’s cousin! She thinks we’re dating!”

They both peer into the dining room. Sharon and her girlfriend sit in one of the corners, grinning at one another like there’s no one else in the room with them. Her girlfriend is _Maria Hill. _Bucky didn’t think she _could _smile, and it’s honestly freaking him out a little.

But more importantly: “Shit, is that Tony and Pepper?”

It _is_. They, too, are sitting in a corner, but diagonally across from Sharon and Maria. There is literally _no table _Steve and Bucky can sit at without being in their line of sight. They’re going to have to be _fake intimate _on their first _hopefully-not-that-fake-date. _

“Okay. Okay, we can do this,” Bucky says, trying to calm them both down.

Steve grimaces. “Sure. No pressure. They’re definitely not gonna report everything back to the rest of our friends.”

“We just gotta do like at the party, it’ll be fine.” They’re probably going to expect them to hold hands. Bucky’s hand is sweaty. This is terrible. He’s going to die alone, rejected by Steve for having wet palms.

“Right. It’s gonna be fine.”

And then he shrugs off his jacket and Bucky nearly swallows his own tongue. The waistcoat Steve is wearing is _not_ a waistcoat—well, it is, but not _just _a waistcoat. It has subtle lacing in the back, almost like a corset, and it highlights the width of Steve’s shoulders _beautifully. _

It’s a complete mystery how they get from the coatroom to their table, whether they even greet their friends, and how Bucky gets through ordering. Somehow, they’ve ended up with breadsticks and a caprese salad for starters which Bucky immediately digs into, if only to keep from blurting out something mortifying like “so when do you think it’s time to meet each other’s families?”

Steve, now that they’re seated, seems to have let go of some of his initial anxiety. He waves at their friends and smiles at Bucky like nothing’s wrong. Like his eyes on Bucky aren’t enough to reduce Bucky to a hopeless mess. They’re really blue, and his lashes are really long. 

“I’ve never been here before,” Steve says after a while, curiously looking around. His voice is warm and low. “It’s really something, Buck.”

Monty is a goddamn genius; Bucky’s going to throw him a parade.

And that’s when the Italian grandfather arrives and things get weird. 


	11. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first date, part 2

Even sitting in another corner of the restaurant, Tony looks like he’s not quite sure whether this is all really happening or if it’s just a delusion brought on by too much caffeine. Bucky _wishes _it was a delusion, he really does.

The Italian grandfather who so distresses them all is Papa Gico, the retired proprietor of Giacomo’s. He a stout, grizzled man who refuses to speak any language but Italian and absolutely cannot mind his own business.

Despite being in retirement, he hastens to serve Steve and Bucky their main courses, joyously rambling at them and making what is no doubt sly comments—nothing bad, or at least Bucky doesn’t think so. His tone is the same as that of any parent with too much interest in their kids’ love lives. The amount of unsubtle winking Papa Gico is throwing around is_ out of this world_.

Also, he keeps drawling “_amore!” _at them at a volume that surely echoes in the Canadian mountains. Hell, Winifred Barnes has probably heard him by now, and Bucky cannot be held responsible for his actions if he has to lie to his Ma about Steve.

And that’s all _before _Papa Gico pulls a harmonica out of nowhere and starts serenading them. The rest of the waitstaff ignore him completely, like this happens every Friday. Bucky’s been here before. He _knows _this doesn’t happen every Friday. Monty is a dead man.

“Steve, he has _a rose in his mouth_. Where did he even get a rose?” Bucky hisses. “And how can he _still sing_?”

“Can I try your spaghetti?” Steve just asks, totally fine with having an overenthusiastic grandpa Disneyfy their date. Frankly, it’s a little unfair; his deaf ear is turned towards Papa Gico, and he turned off his hearing aid the second Papa Gico started hitting the high notes.

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says, pushing his spaghetti and meatballs towards Steve, nearly upending his glass in the process. Steve blinks at him. “Oh, God, I think he’s gonna attempt opera, who the hell does opera with _a harmonica_—Steve, stop laughing! _Steve_!”

Steve’s shoulders are shaking with mirth, his face flushed. He looks at Bucky like he’s a slightly tragic puppy; adorable, but ultimately kind of stupid. With as much gravity as he can muster—which isn’t a lot, at the moment—he carefully tastes Bucky’s food while holding Bucky’s eyes like he’s proving a point.

When Bucky just goes on frowning, Steve rolls his eyes and bumps their feet together. “Seriously, Buck? We’re in an Italian restaurant, getting _Bella Notte_-d by the waiter, and you’ve got spaghetti and meatballs for your main. How can you not play into the _Lady and the Tramp_ spirit of it?”

Okay, put like that, Bucky sees his glaring error. His brain sort of glitches the second it all connects, pictures him and Steve sharing a single spaghetti string until their lips meet in the middle. Is it too late to push a meatball lovingly towards Steve? He probably shouldn’t use his nose for it, but if Steve wants Disney, Bucky will get a white horse and a horde of woodland animals to be his backup dancers.

Before he can put any of this into play, Steve thankfully derails him by offering him a bite of his own seafood linguini, holding out his fork carefully. Feeling as if all eyes are upon them, Bucky lets Steve feed him a bite, begging God to let his blush remain unseen.

“You’ve got a lot to learn, sweetheart,” Steve says wryly. Over his shoulder, Bucky sees Sharon coo at them.

“You gonna teach me then?”

Steve hums, sliding his hand into Bucky’s. It’s the metal hand, but he doesn’t flinch, just rubs his thumbs across the back like it’s just like his flesh-and-bone hand. Honestly, if Bucky wasn’t already hopelessly gone on him, this would’ve been where he’d started falling.

It gets easier then, ignoring Papa Gico. Mostly because Bucky can’t focus on anything except the tangle of their feet, or the touch of their hands, or the way that Steve laughs like he’d done all those many years ago when Bucky first saw him. Bucky did that; he made Steve Rogers laugh. There’s no greater reward in the world.

Their conversation flows easily, and once again Bucky marvels at how in tune they are. It’s not that there aren’t things they disagree on, but they are minor issues, like whether Star Wars or Star Trek is best, which grand wizard is the most powerful (Steve cheats as says Merlin from _The Sword in the Stone_), or which pizza place is the best in Brooklyn.

At once point, Bucky asks, “Do you know what you wanna do after college?”

To which Steve replies, “Get a job at Disney, revolutionize 2D animation, make myself indispensable, and then resign and start my own studio that’ll be much kinder to its employees and doesn’t value profit above all else.”

Which: holy fuck. Bucky has ambition, but nowhere near that. He doesn’t know anyone else who aims that high, except maybe Peggy—and God, is it wrong to be grateful that hers and Steve’s relationship has already been through the romance part? He wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell if he had to compete with her. 

Steve comes alive when he talks about art, forgetting everything else and gesturing excitedly. He still refuses to tell Bucky about his secret project—something that is equally tantalizing for the both of them, making Bucky all the more eager to hear about it and Steve all the more eager to hint at it (“it’s a bit old-fashioned, but with a modern sort of flair”, or “Thor and his brother have sat for me, and Peggy and Angie, too”).

When he segues into a rhapsody about an older exhibition at the Whitney, Bucky wants to kiss him so badly it hurts. Just grab him by the face and plant one on him, reckless and heedless and desperate. But he can’t; they don’t just do that. Despite the promise that Steve could practice his kissing on Bucky, Steve has only really kissed him on the lips once. The rest of the time, they kiss each other’s cheeks, or shoulders, or necks, just pecks, really, nothing that lingers like Bucky wants to. Those kisses, while they make his heart race with delight, aren’t enough.

A hundred years of kissing Steve wouldn’t be enough.

Should he just go for it? Wait for Steve to take a breath and pull him close, let his touch express his admiration? He could do it, easily; Steve would probably go along, raise his brows questioningly but come close, would let Bucky tilt his head up and place his mouth on Steve’s.

“—we should go, the next time we’re home,” Steve is saying.

“Huh?”

“To the Whitney? Not that we have to!”

“No! I mean—_yes_. We should go. We should definitely go, take me to the museum.” _Take me on a date. Take me to your home, to your room, to your bed_._ Take me as your lawfully wedded husband._

Steve’s answering smile is like the rising sun. God, this guy could talk Bucky into taking on the whole world. It’s probably best he doesn’t tell Steve that yet, it’s probably a bit over-committed to confess undying true love to your fake boyfriend. Just a tad dramatic, that is.

*

At the end of the not-date, Bucky drops Steve off at his apartment dorm.

It’s not that late, and since it’s Friday people are out in force, partying their troubles away. Bucky’s phone has been buzzing for the last out with what is no doubt demands for status updates from the Howlies.

“We should do that again,” Steve says, standing by the door, body turned towards Bucky. The trip back has warmed them up, so his jacket is open and that fuckin’ vest is testing Bucky’s self-control something awful.

“Yeah,” he agrees, fidgeting. Do you hug at the end of a fake date? Fist-bump? What is the protocol here? “Next time, I’m gonna let you pick the place.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve grins. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why? You gonna take me to a riot?”

“You say that like it’s not gonna happen at some point anyway.”

They stand there for several minutes, smiling at each other like lunatics. Bucky’s pretty sure Steve sways towards him a couple time, but he pulls back quickly, as if he, too, is a little daunted by everything. It calms Bucky some, knowing that he’s not the only one flying by the seat of his pants on this.

There’s a clacking on the stairs, and then Sam opens the front door, almost making Steve tumble over backwards. Bucky grabs onto him before he can go down, pulling Steve safely against his chest. Sam stares at them and they stare back, caught in an awkward embrace.

“Um. Don’t let me interrupt you, man, I’m just taking out the trash,” Sam says and scurries off towards the giant garbage cans in the recycling area.

Bucky’s hands are clenched in Steve’s shirt—well, one of them is, the other is curved around his back, unable to catch onto the vest which must be goddamn painted on—and Steve’s fingers are spread over Bucky’s chest.

They’re so close, so damnably, awfully close. Bucky can count every eyelash, smell Steve’s sharp-sweet shampoo, feel his heartbeat through their clothes. Steve’s looking up at him, face caressed by the light of the streetlamps, his features golden as if molded by God himself. Bucky should kiss him, should be the brave one, show Steve that—

Steve’s had it with waiting, pulls Bucky down.

He tastes sharp, like the lemon tart he had for dessert, and he’s warm and careful and soft, and his stubble is prickly against Bucky’s skin. Bucky melts into it, forgetting the world and their lie and the fact that they’re blocking the doorway for when Sam returns.

It starts with a brush and ends with a sigh. After the first kiss, Bucky throws himself into it, refusing to just stand by like the last time. He kisses Steve like he’d wanted to at the restaurant, kisses him until he shivers. Steve likes the sting of teeth, clutches Bucky close when Bucky nips his lip.

When they pull apart, Sam’s desperately trying to look busy, lingering by the trash cans and shivering in his jogging pants and t-shirt. Bucky would apologize, but Steve’s laughing breathlessly into the space between their mouths, flushed and bright-eyed and happy. How’s Bucky supposed to think of anything except him?

They untangle themselves slowly, a little more awkward now that the moment has passed.

“Goodnight, Buck.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Steve nearly trips on the stairs, too busy looking back and waving. If Bucky skips a little on his way home, no one’s around to judge him. Except Sam. And those drunk girls yelling encouragements at him. And also the bus driver.

Whatever.

It’s a beautiful night.


	12. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is fighting and making up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: use of homophobic slur by unnamed character. the scene itself isn't shown, but Steve relays it afterwards.

Due to his infatuation, there are a few things about Steve that Bucky has forgotten; like the fact that half the reason they’re in this whole mess is because Steve can and will get into a fight with absolutely anyone and anything. It’s just that everything’s been going so smoothly, Steve’s been smiling since they met, and Bucky is more than a little enamored with the very feeling of falling in love. Everything is rosy and nothing hurts.

He’s abruptly reminded that the world isn’t all sunshine a week or so after their date.

Bucky is correcting coursework for his TA class when an unknown number calls. He doesn’t pick up, eyeing the phone warily instead. Who the hell would be calling him? His Ma would be the only real contender, but she’d use her own phone to do so, so it’s either a wrong number or a salesman, and besides, Bucky hates talking on the phone. If it’s important they’ll leave a message and he’ll go from there.

Which is exactly what happens when the phone finally stops ringing.

The message is simple and sends ice shooting through Bucky’s chest. “Buck, it’s Steve. Look, can you come pay my bail? I’ll pay you back, I promise, I’m at—” and Bucky’s already sprinting out the door. 

He doesn’t think, just goes, speeding a little bit—which, in hindsight, probably not the best idea when going to a goddamn police station, but can you blame him? Once there, he storms through the doors, appearing so abruptly that the officer sitting out front startles a little (his mismatched outfit of sleep pants with candles-that-look-like-penises print, Monty’s Birkenstock sandals, and baseball shirt with FERGALICIOUS across his chest is why she keeps staring, though).

“Steve Rogers,” he gasps. “I’m here for Steve Rogers!”

To say that he’s a little befuddled when bail turns out to be just one dollar is an understatement. It doesn’t get any better when he overhears Steve and another officer talking as Steve’s being escorted up front.

“—Rogers, if I wanted to insult you, I’d tell you you’d make a good cop.”

“_You take that back, Nicholas_.”

“Steve!” Bucky calls, hurrying to the divider between the bullpen and general waiting area.

Steve is a mess; he’s got fresh stitches in his left eyebrow, a brace on one wrist, a split lip and enough bruises of various colors to create a rather melancholy color palette. At Bucky’s yelp, he looks up and while his thunderous expression doesn’t clear, he doesn’t look angrier. Small victories.

“What happened? Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, Buck,” Steve mutters, subjecting himself to Bucky’s nervous fussing.

The officer—tall and scary-looking, and he even has an intimidating eye-patch—rolls his eye. “He’s been banned from The Maiden and Shield for fighting.”

“You were in a _bar fight_?”

“_No,_” Steve immediately snaps, glaring at Officer Fury, whose name Bucky doesn’t learn until much later.

He was kind of in a bar fight. Bucky moves past anxious and into angry as the story is slowly pulled from Steve bit by bit—with input from Officer Fury, who doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to be anywhere else.

Steve had been on his way home, minding his own business (both Fury and Bucky eye him with disbelief), when a bar fight had spilled into the street. One of the guys involved had stumbled into Steve, then demanded an apology. When Steve had refused, well. Things were said, punches were thrown, and when the police had showed up, Fury had had to pick Steve up by the scruff like a rabid terrier and stuff him in a squad car to keep him from eviscerating that guy.

“You couldn’t have _walked away_?” Bucky demands, gesturing wildly.

Steve, just as mad, waves his arms right back. “He was fuckin’ rude, so no.”

“You can’t fight every rude person, Steve!”

“You don’t get to decide that—”

“Steve, goddammit, I’m not being demanding here—”

“He called me a fag, fuck no am I gonna just take it—”

Bucky stills. “What did you say?” Steve repeats himself, eyes still ablaze with anger. Bucky turns to Fury. “That guy here still?”

Fury, perhaps wisely, doesn’t answer, but Steve is now baring his teeth at the scruffy frat guy being frog marched through the station by another officer. Spotting Steve, the guy sneers, and that’s about the time Bucky’s common sense snuffs out and he launches himself across the bullpen and tackles the guy before Officer Nick can even blink.

And that’s how Steve ends up bailing Bucky out for a dollar, too. 

*

Things aren’t pleasant on the trip back. Steve has moved from outrage into stubborn silence, and Bucky’s not good with being ignored, so the car is ripe with tension. Lost in his own thoughts, Bucky just drives them straight to the frat house, but Steve doesn’t protest, just slams the door and walks straight up to Bucky’s room, looking neither left nor right.

The Howlies all eye Bucky warily, but he just shrugs and races after Steve. They wisely don’t ask too many questions beyond “you guys okay?” and, in Monty’s case, “need me to sleep down here for tonight?” which Bucky shakes his head at. Hopefully, they’ll resolve this without a screaming match.

It doesn’t, however, look promising when the first thing out Steve’s mouth when Bucky joins him is, “I can take care of myself.”

Biting back instinctive sarcasm, Bucky replies, “I know.”

“I don’t need you to defend me, and I really don’t need a keeper.”

“I know.”

“You did the same fuckin’ thing, you don’t get to tell me to walk away when you can’t even do it yourself.”

“I know, Stevie.”

“_Stop agreeing with me, asshole!_”

They’re standing chest to chest, Steve on his tiptoes to be—somewhat—on level with Bucky. He’s flushed almost completely red, his fury like fire under his skin, and his blue eyes are stormy. Bucky himself grows almost eerily calm in the face of strong emotion, so he just lets Steve get in his face and holds back the urge to shake him.

“I’m not gonna fight you,” he tells Steve. “I don’t wanna fight.”

Steve slumps slowly back down. He looks a little ashamed, in fact, pulling away and wrapping his arms around himself. “Just because we’re—just because we’re… whatever, you don’t get to treat me like I’m suddenly some fragile little—”

“I know. I know, and I’m sorry, I never meant to imply that you were weak, I don’t think that, I swear. But, fuck, Steve, I nearly had a fucking heart attack, you can’t expect me to just look the other way when you call me from the police station and come out looking like this? I can’t do that, and it’s not ‘cause we’re... doing this. We’re friends, and I care, okay?”

They’re both half-turned from one another, vulnerable and hurting at being misperceived so. There’s nothing Bucky would rather do than take Steve in his arms, but he’s not sure he’s welcome, and hell no is he going to push it. He just wants… he just wants to be allowed to care.

Steve breaks first, sighing a little shakily, then ducking forward and almost smacking into Bucky’s chest. They both wince, Bucky because Steve’s a bony, little wrecking ball, Steve because his injuries sting. Nonetheless, Bucky wraps his arms around him quickly, tucking him carefully against him. He’s safe, he’s alright—well, mostly—and he’s probably going to forgive Bucky. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.

“I’m sorry, too,” Steve tells him. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I didn’t mean to imply that you thought less of me.”

“Yes, you did,” Bucky states plainly, hugging Steve a little firmer. This hug is definitely lasting longer than fraternal hugs usually do, and Bucky and the Howlies aren’t exactly shy with friendly affection. The Howlies don’t tuck their faces into Bucky’s neck and rub their noses against his skin, though.

“I did. I’m sorry, I fucked up. I’m… well. I’ve got my issues, and I took them out on you, and I’m sorry.”

Bucky hums, mumbles another sorry as well. They’re swaying a little bit, just small, soft rocks back and forth. Steve’s smells amazing, a sharp-sweet scent that’s invaded Bucky’s dreams because of how often Steve wears his clothes. Right now, it’s calming, leeching the residue worry from Bucky and the relief is so sweet it gets a little hard to breathe.

Which is probably why Bucky’s brain betrays him and he blurts out a soft, “Do you wanna stay here tonight?” Which: _why_? Why must his brain and body cooperate to make Bucky the single biggest dolt in the galaxy? Jesus, Steve must think he’s such a freak, it’s not like he’ll have anywhere to sleep except Bucky’s bed, not without the Howlies noticing, and then the lie will fall apart and they won’t see each other as much and it’ll be horrible and awkward and—

Thankfully, Steve blurts out just as quickly, “Yeah.” Then stiffens. “Um.”

Bucky laughs, the tension breaks, and Steve goes off to text Sam so that he won’t worry (he does, however, cuss Steve out and demands to speak to Bucky to get a more accurate account of how rough Steve’s looking. Steve rolls his eyes all the way through but doesn’t grow annoyed when Bucky carefully squeezes his shoulder, practically leans into it, in fact. It makes Bucky feel all glowy and fuzzy inside). 

If Monty’s perturbed by Steve staying the night, he doesn’t show it. On the contrary, he almost seems overjoyed to have Steve stay. All of the Howlies do. It’s grown late, so they don’t stay up long, but for the half hour or so that they linger in the living room, Steve easily slots in with them all, allowing Morita to take a closer look at his stitches—the glory of having a resident pre-med student—and talking to Gabe about his upcoming dance recitals.

When it’s time to turn in, Steve and Bucky go to bed, only half-awkward. Bucky’s a little over-conscious of his body, careful to have worn both a shirt and pants to bed and a lying a little too stiffly next to Steve to avoid accidentally touching him.

Steve, likewise, curls up with his back to Bucky, and then spends the next ten minutes very obviously and unnaturally not moving at all. He’s wearing Bucky’s clothes again, and he’s in Bucky’s bed, and Bucky’s right next to him, and frankly, this was not well-thought out.

Sleep is a long time coming, and Bucky hopes to high heaven that Monty doesn’t notice anything amiss when he comes in later. If he does, he has the grace to keep quiet.


	13. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bucky and Steve continue to be stupid about each other, Thor tells a story, and Monty is a cockblock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while, sorry about that! have a fluffy chapter to make up for that

The morning after is… not ideal. Bucky barely sleeps a wink all night, much too aware of every breath, every noise, every movement. He can feel each and every spring underneath him; given that he had splurged for an expensive memory foam mattress topper that should be almost impossible. Steve breaks the tension by looking thoroughly miserable with his face all done up in bruises and stitches, whining about needing coffee. Bucky serves it to him with a side of cereal and painkillers. He’s real boyfriend material. 

They don’t have time to be awkward though, because the whirlwind that is Midterms hits them like a runaway train.

The first week, they barely see one another. Bucky misses Steve acutely, feels incredibly needy with only the spare texts he dares send to hide it. But late on Saturday, Steve bursts in, claiming that Sam had questioned why Bucky wasn’t around as often, and thus begins a much stranger second Midterms week.

Some days, they see each other more regularly than they see their own reflections. Steve may be an art major, but while he spends tons of time in the studio, he has just as many essays to turn in, and those he writes curled up in Bucky’s bed, half-dressed in Bucky’s clothes (he’s _fully_ dressed, of course, the other half of his clothes is just his own. However, if he chose to _only_ be half dressed and those clothes then be only Bucky’s, well… you’d hear no complaints from Bucky’s corner of the room).

In that week, Bucky doesn’t even think about the fact that they’re faking it. Being around Steve just feels natural, as if he’s been here all his life. While he’s still struck to the core by Steve’s smile, his laugh, his sly humor, nothing can measure up to the knowledge that they are well and truly friends. He may never have anything more—and God, does it hurt to contemplate that—but he has this, and he never wants to be without it.

Late that week, Bucky goes to pick up Steve from studio hours. Steve’s been getting more and more antsy about his Super-Secret Project (yes, that’s what it’s called, no, Bucky doesn’t accept substitutions). At the door to Steve’s studio, he’s stopped by Thor.

“Barnes!” he calls, voice like a bullhorn. If he didn’t have the demeanor of an oversized golden retriever, he’d be an intimidating guy. The way he skips towards Bucky thoroughly also dispels any lingering ideas of bullishness. “My brother and Rogers aren’t quite done yet, so I have been sent to waylay you for the next twenty minutes. Come along, adventure awaits!”

‘Adventure’ turns out to be the slightly shady food truck parked outside the XIC theater hall, right next door to the art studios. It’s manned by a dour-looking woman who may or may not be Baba Yaga, and Bucky lets Thor sweet-talk her in a language that sounds like… Bucky has no idea what the fuck that language is. It’s very flat, has lots of cut off vowels, and consonants that sounds like they’re trying to be swallowed whole.

He ends up with a thoroughly delicious pork roast sandwich (“it’s a _flæskestegssandwich_!”). It has some kind of pickled cucumber salad and pickled red cabbage toppings, along with the roast itself and crackling and mayo. Eating it feels like a hug for your soul (and a heart attack in the waiting).

“So,” Bucky says, because he can’t not take this opportunity. “Stevie doin’ portraits or somethin’?”

Completely unapologetic, Thor changes the subject, “Have you ever wondered how I got this scar?” He pulls up his shirtsleeve to show of a weirdly shaped, nearly indistinct scar on his arm.

Bucky hasn’t, but he’ll play along. Were Steve here, he’d be miming at Bucky not to ask (and look like he was trying to imitate a bird of paradise doing its mating dance as a result. Steve should never play charades. _Never._) “So, how’d you get that scar?”

“’Tis a tale of great daring,” Thor begins, waving his arms and his sandwich around. There’s a seagull eyeing them hungrily, likely only keeping its distance because Sir Quirrell would know if anyone other than he mugged one of the Howlies and take bloody revenge. Sir Quirrell is the scourge of XIC. “I was but a young child, a mere nine years old, my brother just seven. There was only one strawberry yoghurt cup left, and he had set his sights upon it. I, in my defense, didn’t know this, so I ate it. He then snuck into my room at bedtime and shanked me with a spork.”

Bucky blinks. “Your seven-year-old brother _shanked_ you?”

“He was always spirited.”

In a much more disbelieving tone: “With a _spork_?”

“I know! To this day, I don’t know whether it was out of mercy or vengefulness. On one hand: it was blunt, so it couldn’t cause that much damage. On the other, Loki was a mean little shit who knew how to work with what he had. Our sister says it’s definitely the latter.”

“_Your brother’s name is Loki?_”

And that’s how Steve and Loki find them, Bucky blinking and trying to comprehend Thor’s weirdly complicated family while Thor weaves increasingly outrages tales of his childhood. Steve takes one look at him and goes, “He told you the spork story, didn’t he?”

Bucky can only nod. Loki rolls his eyes; while he is adopted, it is easy to see the resemblance between the brothers. There’s a cunning to him that Thor hides behind bluster and smiles, but an elegance in both their bearing, and a sly sort of humor that shows at corners of their mouths. Loki is tall, lean, and pale with dark hair and green eyes. Bucky is maybe starting to suspect that the brothers are actual Nordic gods.

“Home?” Steve asks.

“Home,” Bucky says, a little breathless with how easily Steve refers to it as such.

Steve and Sam’s apartment is right next to an area undergoing renovations, so neither of them spend much time there at the moment. Thus, Steve has become something like a permanent fixture around the baseball house, and all the Howlies are used to him.

Monty nods distractedly at them when they come in, bent over his own desk and surrounded by what seems to be botany books straight out of _Harry Potter_. Steve drops his bag at the foot of the bed, toes off his shoes, and makes grabby hands at Bucky. Bucky, knowing what he wants, quickly surrenders his sweatshirt. Steve likes wearing it so much that it’s started to smell like him, and the scent of him and Bucky mixing together makes Bucky… well. He’s taken to wearing it more often, let’s put it like that.

They all work quietly side by side for around an hour, Steve tapping away on his computer—largely deleting what he just wrote or procrastinating on social media—Bucky marking up essays for his TA class, and Monty riffling through his books and scribbling on sticky notes.

At the end of that hour, he gets up, stretches. “Time for a break, methinks.” He starts walking out, turns in the doorway and makes an _I’m watching you _gesture. “Keep it PG-13, kiddies.” And cackles madly as he shuts the door behind him.

Little does he know, it’s only ever going to be G-rated in here, but… “Him saying that makes me wanna do the exact opposite,” Bucky says with a snort. He’d like it if they had to be given that warning, but he’s not stupid enough to hope—

“So why don’t we?”

Freeze frame. “_Huh?_”

Steve shrugs, jaw set mulishly. In Bucky’s shirt, with paint flecks on his hands, and his hair messy and streaked with color from a long day in the studio, he looks like every dream Bucky has ever tried to grasp just moments before waking. “I’ve been thinking… you said we could, you know, practice, and stuff. So, I—I mean, I like kissing, and if you like kissing…”

“Imma need you to finish that thought, buddy,” Bucky says hoarsely, not daring to hope.

Steve’s flushing outrageously. “Forget it, it’s stupid.”

But it’s not. Well, it is, but Bucky’s fully ready to hurl himself out of a plane if Steve so much as hints at wanting to try skydiving, so forgive him for not thinking any of this through. “You wanna be fake boyfriends with kissing-benefits?”

“Oh God, it sounds even worse spoken aloud—”

“_Yes_! I mean—yes, we should do that.”

A beat. “What, really?”

“Yeah! Like, like you said. You like kissing, I like kissing, we’re already kissing for show. And we’re friends, and stuff, and you need practice, and I’m—”

“Getting over that guy,” Steve says, looking away.

“Yeah—uh. Not that I’m using you!”

“So I’m the only one using anyone here, that’s what you’re saying?”

“_No_. Christ, we’re _compatible_, would you shut up and kiss me already?”

“Well, I would, but you’re all the way over—”

Bucky moves faster than you ever should if you were planning on being smooth. As a result, the first kiss isn’t particularly pleasant, their teeth clacking together, and Bucky bending over Steve on the bed like some kind vampire contortionist.

Once Steve gets with the program, however, it goes from clumsy to mind-melting. He pulls Bucky down to sit on the bed, one hand on his neck, the other clenched in his shirt. With his lips and hands he sets Bucky alight. Each kiss starts sweet, just like Bucky loves it, and ends with both of them surging into the next one, breathless. There’s something so filthy and perfect in the little sounds Steve makes, something that drives Bucky out of his goddamn mind with want, makes him lose himself to pleasure.

Steve’s not a strong guy, but he’s determined, and Bucky’s putty in his hands. He can move Bucky however he wants him, put him in place and kiss the sense right out of him, and soon, Bucky’s the one making noises. He’s a little embarrassed by them, in that way you’re embarrassed to show just how much you want someone, as if you’re breaking the bubble of desire with your mere presence. In reality, he’s just the guy Steve is kissing for practice.

Steve doesn’t treat him like that though, throws himself at Bucky at the first real moan.

He’s nearly in Bucky’s lap, Bucky’s hands on his waist and his thigh, when Monty comes bursting back through the door. “WE HAVE AN EMERGEN—oh, fuck, shit, sorry.”

Bucky opens his eyes for the first time in minutes. Steve’s blotchy and gorgeous, lips spit-slick and kiss-plump, and his eyes are glassy. There’s nothing Bucky would rather do than devour him, but Monty’s still in the goddamn doorway, watching them with his hands on his hips like a disapproving mother. “_The fuck, man?_”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I or did I not tell you to—never mind, not important. We have an utter tragedy on our hands, Barnes. It finally happened. Put on your best shirt, it’s funeral time.”

Bucky gasps. “_The microwave died?_”

Steve resurfaces. “_What._”


	14. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is a funeral, more kissing, and the good kind of secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy, long time no see. sorry!  
end-of-semester rush is coming at me, but i'll try and update at least twice more before new years!

“After many, many years of faithful and steadfast service,” Dum Dum proclaims, voice a little thick with earnest grief. “Our dear, dear microwave, Stanislaw II, has left us…”

All the Howlies are lined up in their Sunday best (which, around these parts, amounts to their cleanest shirts and best jeans), arms slung over one another’s shoulders and faces painted with sadness. Even Bucky, who would very much rather be in his room with Steve still, has made an effort and joined his brothers in solidarity on this day of loss. Stanislaw had been a good microwave—the _best_, in fact. He had had a popcorn button that got the popcorn exactly right _every single time. _They’ll never find another microwave like him again.

Meanwhile, Steve is squinting at all of them like he’s almost hoping that Ashton Kutcher will come bursting through the wall and shout _punk’d! _at any second now. Irina is also here—which: when the fuck did she arrive?—patting Dum Dum on the shoulder, her face utterly neutral. Bucky strongly suspects she’s trying not to laugh. Good woman.

They make a small procession to Gabe’s car, Monty and Morita carrying Stanislaw between them. They gently put the microwave in trunk and wave goodbye as Gabe drives off to the electronics store in town that’ll dispose of Stanislaw properly. He plays jazz on the way; the notes drift towards them on the wind.

Back inside, Morita has arranged some dry, store-bought biscuits on a plate and is serving up cheap vodka shots. Steve’s eyes narrow further, and Bucky has to look away not to grin openly. At this point, they’re all fucking with him, because why the hell not? Steve can take a joke, it’s exactly the same level of bullshit he would commit to if it was the other way around. However, just in case this is actual tradition, he’s visibly biting his tongue and trying not to offend anyone.

It’ll be a few weeks before Bucky gets around to telling Steve that the procession and wake were just theatrics, because at that moment Irina takes a seat.

In Sir Quirrel’s chair.

The Howlies all grow silent. Bucky grasps Steve’s hand with a gasp. Steve, who has by now become familiar with the sacred area that is Sir Quirrel’s ugly armchair, freezes, too. Dum Dum looks like he might faint.

Morita braves it. “Irina, uh,” he starts, eyes flittering about in a panic. Irina eyes him warily. “That’s Sir Quirrel’s chair?” It is definitely not meant to sound like a question. To be fair, they’re all still a little in awe of Irina and she rarely, if ever, gives them cause to contradict her. Now, though… 

Irina raises a brow. Before she can say anything, there’s a rustle from the bush just outside the window. The Howlies all panic; Monty tackles Morita to get him out of the way, Dernier dives behind the couch, and Bucky throws Steve over his shoulder and makes a run for it. Dum Dum launches himself towards Irina, ready to sacrifice himself for her. When they get married, every single Howlie will mention that in their respective speeches.

It’s all for naught.

Not because Irina ends up mauled. But because she just turns around, stares out the window, and honest to God _growls_. The rustling stops—then a hiss. Irina bares her teeth.

And Sir Quirrel—for the first and last time in all of history—_backs off_.

Dum Dum, having hit the wall when he jumped into the line of fire, stares at her, besotted. Monty and Morita, tangled together on the floor, stare. Dernier, peeking over the back of the couch, stares. Bucky, in the hallway, stares; Steve, clumsily looking around Bucky, stares.

“Holy shit,” Bucky says, just as Dum Dum blurts, “Do you wanna go out with me?”

Irina tuts fondly. “Silly bear.”

For Irina, that’s an enthusiastic yes.

*

“So, the Howlies’ Halloween party is coming up,” Bucky says not-at-all nonchalantly when they’re all sacked out in the living room a few hours later. Steve’s in his lap and looking very pleased to be there. He’s also eyeing Sir Quirrel’s chair like he wants to try it out, too, so Bucky has a rather firm grip on him.

“Mm,” Steve hums. “It’s another frat event, right? Rumlow gonna be there?”

Technically, Rumlow is _not _going to be there. He’ll be at his own Halloween bash, holding down the fort in case the judges—a highly secret team of students who write for the college newspaper and have about the same status on campus as high-end food critics have in the world—show up. Nothing can be left to circumstance when the reputation of the frats and sororities are at stake.

Bucky is not going to give Steve a reason to _not _show up though. “He might,” he lies. He’s lucky the Howlies are all busy with their own conversations, or he’d be throttled for lying to his fake-boyfriend.

“I’ll be here,” Steve promises. “I’m gonna have to swing by Tony’s first, though. You don’t have any costume guidelines, right? Because then I might have to go home and change first.”

“Nah, no guidelines.” A beat. “Wait. Does Tony have guidelines? _Again_?”

Steve laughs. “The more extra Tony can be, the better. This year’s theme is ‘literary childhood heroes’. Nat’s got a bet going that he’s going to show up as Frankenstein’s monster.”

Bucky huffs, even as he’s kind of charmed by that image. Tony’s a weird one, but not a bad apple. He nuzzles Steve’s cheek, heart beating fast and only speeding up when Steve leans into it, enough so that Bucky can taste the edge of his smile. “And who’re you going as?”

“The Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Bucky stills. And a perfect idea arises.

He giddily refuses to tell Steve what his own costume is going to be. Steve, beyond curious, tries every dirty trick to get him to confess in the weeks up to the party, even asking Bucky in the middle of another make-out session that had been swiftly heading down a much raunchier lane. He’s got Steve in his lap and is halfway to lying down and just panting in surrender, and that’s when Steve murmurs, “You keepin’ secrets from me, Buck?” right in Bucky’s ear before sucking on his earlobe and short-circuiting his brain.

Bucky would’ve confessed to anything, from being a raccoon in a trench coat to having a long-time crush on Disney’s Robin Hood as a kid, if only it would have kept Steve going, but somehow, he manages to keep his secret. Mostly by only being able to say “muh?” and trying to pull Steve back in.

Steve pouts for the rest of the night and refuses Bucky kisses—though not cuddles.

Bucky argues that if Steve tells him what his Secret Art Project is, then he’ll tell Steve what his Secret Halloween Costume will be. He means it purely as a joke; he doesn’t want to push Steve away by not being able to take no for an answer. Steve, however, shoots Bucky a look so contemplative and heady that it makes Bucky hot under the collar just like that. He might spontaneously combust at this rate.

They both keep their secrets, for now.

Bucky spends the rest of October juggling TA responsibilities, practice with the Howlies, and any social obligations, all the while keeping up the pretense that he and Steve are in a serious, committed relationship, and putting together his costume.

He ends up accidentally making friends with Clint Barton, which makes the latter go all the more smoothly. The guy is a wizard with a make-up sponge, and he’s beyond happy that Bucky fished him out of the duck pond and got his phone dried out in a bag of rice without having to replace it. He’s a complete disaster of a guy and snarky beyond belief.

Clint relays the many, _many _cringe-worthy interactions he has with Scott in which they are both completely obtuse dumbasses who absolutely cannot get through their skulls that the other has a gigantic crush on them. (Bucky also hears about these instances from Scott, of course. He really tries to get them to _just ask each other out, damn it _without revealing what he’s been told by the other, because that’s not his place to tell_. _But seriously. How obtuse can a couple of clearly besotted guys be?)

Tony is absolutely no help in that department. He just drinks way too many pumpkin spice lattes and suggests outrageous promposal style gestures while they’re all trying to work during their mandated mentor-mentee hours. (And when he doesn’t act like a pompous ass, he texts Pepper Potts and tries to pretend he hasn’t made several blueprints for their future house).

As Halloween approaches, Bucky’s costume comes together.

“Tell me again why you aren’t going to be Buttercup?” Nat asks long-sufferingly, once again Bucky’s go-between for theatre department castoffs. (Also, she’s about the only person he knows who can get clothes altered properly, and her assistance came at the price of knowing what the hell she was to do).

“’Cause I’m not blonde,” Bucky insists mulishly. Never mind the fact that he’s currently browsing through the hair dyes at Duane Reade because he’s not black-haired either. Maybe he should just go with a wig. But those get _itchy_.

“You’re not a girl either, but the romance is with Butter—”

“Yes, thank you, Tasha,” he interrupts, loud enough to make the bored-looking cashier look up in interest. “I have watched—and read—_The Princess Bride, _too. If we stuck with canon, Westley wears jeans. But we’re not, so it doesn’t matter. And also: _swords_!”

Nat sighs at him. She doesn’t have an inch of moral high ground though; she and Sam are going as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. You get one guess as to who is Peter. Hint: it’s not Sam.

But back to the more important concerns: can Bucky grow out his hair before Halloween? Fuck it, at least he can grow stubble. Maybe a moustache, even. Otherwise, he knows they have cheap sticky ones at the dollar store. It’ll be _fine. _Bucky’s going to be the most dashing swordsman at the Halloween party, so help him God. 


	15. 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is a Halloween party, Princess Bride quotes, and Sir Quirrel's identity is revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all got excited, so i got excited, and then i wrote faster

Because the Howlies are all, at heart, complete and utter doofs, they have a dress rehearsal á la every teen movie prom dress reveal, each of them doing a catwalk down the stairs and everything. The rest, of course, look on and cheer uproariously, wolf-whistling like it’s going out of style. 

Monty gets the rehearsal started by strolling down the stairs in a long, handsome cloak and hot professor clothes in greens and browns. He twirls a wand in one hand and has a small, ugly doll-plant thing in the other. “Listen up fives, a ten is speaking! Professor Neville Longbottom calls you to order!”

The Howlies hoot.

Next is Morita, likewise in a cloak (though this is perhaps more a cape) and a colorful vest and knee-length pants. He has attached pointed silicone tips to the tops of his ears, and his hair is messy. Around his neck, he has hung a chain with a single golden ring. Frodo Baggins.

Dernier, almost outmatching Monty for sheer pompousness, comes down in a full musketeer outfit, complete with an oversized, feathered hat and ballooning pants. He, too, has grown out his moustache for Halloween, though only a little (both Dernier and Dum Dum are too hipstery to deny their hipsterity when it comes to facial hair).

Dum Dum, because he has still not given up hope that George R.R. Martin will fix the shitshow that became _Game of Thrones_, is decked out in all-black, a brother of the Night’s Watch. There really are a lot of capes in the house this Halloween, and it allows them all to dramatically turn corners.

Gabe, too, has poured a lot of effort into his costume, but he’s gone the spookier route than the rest of them. He has fake blood dripping from the corners of his lips and a long, purple cloak that somehow twirls ominously despite there being no wind. Bucky knows for a fact that Gabe has practiced this for _hours_.

And last, but not least, is Bucky.

The Howlies _ooh_ and _ahh_ as he walks slowly down the stairs. His costume is not spot on, and he’s a little nervous that that might ruin the effect. The real Inigo Montoya has long hair, is pretty slender, and has a Spanish accent. Bucky has short hair, a lot more bulk, and he wasn’t sure if trying to do a Spanish accent would be racist or not, so he chose not to attempt it.

But he’s as close to Inigo as he’s going to get. From the gray and brown costume to the moustache (which Clint, Dum Dum and Dernier have all been teaching him to comb out just right), to the black dye in his hair, his long boots, and the sword in his belt, he makes quite the picture.

Even Sir Quirrel, curled up on the windowsill and watching the proceedings with beady eyes, chirps. That’s as good an omen is there ever was.

*

Halloween dawns bright and early. Or, well, it certainly dawns, but it won’t be for a few hours yet, damn the New York fall darkness. But _when_ it dawns, it_ will _be bright, and crisply cold and lovely. Bucky, because he’s one of the poor bastards to have class, drags himself out of bed and goes through the day paying almost no attention to his classes. That will definitely come back to bite him in the ass at some point, but at least all his fellow students will be in the same boat. Their professor will understand. Maybe. If she’s feeling gracious.

When he gets back to the house, it has transformed.

There’s a great, black kettle in the front yard, large enough to contain Dum Dum, and someone (probably Monty) has created a graveyard filled with (hopefully fake) deadly plants. There’s spiderwebs strung from the trees and ceiling, and the tantalizing smells of apple and cinnamon fill the air. When darkness falls, the many pumpkins perched on the front stoop and porch will glow cheerfully eerie and cast beautifully carved shadows on the wall. Especially because Steve took charge of carving them (under supervision, because that guy _cannot_ be trusted with a knife despite his great talent at pumpkin-carving. They’d run out of bandages by the end of it).

Like with the ΚΩΜ-brunch, the party is a point of pride. Maybe even more so, because they’re pretty close to the edge of campus and thus see a lotta kids trick-or-treating in the early hours of the evening. Making sure that everyone has a nice evening is paramount, even more so than whether or not Steve will like the maple-glazed pumpkin donuts that Bucky hasn’t actually been in charge of making but is fretting over nonetheless until he’s evicted from the kitchen with extreme prejudice.

It all goes off without a hitch. The children come, see, and conquer, leaving with 80% of the Howlies’ candy stash (one of the little girls had taken at least five times as much as any other kid, because she’d told Morita she liked his costume. Also, she’d been wearing a Samwise Gamgee costume. It wasn’t a fair fight).

The party guests start arriving, and time both slows down and speeds up until Steve texts him:

**Steve**: _We’re leaving Stark’s now_

**Steve**:_ Is it okay if I bring the rest of the gang? If yes, I would like it on record that I have no responsibility for these people _

**Steve**: _Also I did not get in a fight_

**Me**: _…sounds fake but okay_

**Me**: _just get here I have a surprise for u_

Bucky is most decidedly not lurking on the porch for Maximum Theatricality except he kind of is, but at least the Howlies are all there to make fun of him for it. The joys of friendship and brotherhood are truly outstanding this fine evening.

And then Steve arrives.

He’s all in black, the top half of his face obscured by a mask and scarf. He’s got tall boots and a sword at his side, and it puts a little swagger into his walk that drives Bucky absolutely crazy. And when he sees Bucky, his jaw drops, perfect pink lips forming a pretty little ‘o’.

Bucky takes a deep breath, exhales shakily. He practiced this. _Don’t fuck up now, Barnes_. He draws his sword—a cheap plastic replica that he’d gotten at a toy store—and places the point oh, so gently under Steve’s chin, tilts his head up. “Who are you?” he questions softly, grinning in a way that Inigo hadn’t at this point in the story.

Steve, however, is grinning just as strongly. “No one of consequence.”

“I_ must_ know.”

“Get used to disappointment,” Steve says, flicking the sword away and standing up on his tiptoes to get at Bucky’s mouth.

The entire peanut gallery of their friends is probably watching, but what does it matter when Steve tastes like raspberry and peach and is pulling at Bucky’s lower lip in the sweetest caress?

Apparently, it does mean something, but mostly because they’re blocking the porch and no one can get past them.

They spend the evening and half the night being the cutest fake-boyfriends this side of eternity. Steve has brought pretty much every one of his friends—even Tony himself, who _is _dressed as Frankenstein’s monster and had specifically planned on bailing from his own party just to come here. Thor’s dressed magnificently as Glorfindel, the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, and dragging his brother around to meet everyone, his other hand tight around Bruce’s.

Loki is… Bucky doesn’t know who the hell Loki is dressed up as, but he sure is dressed handsomely. He could be some kind of Hogwarts professor? Or maybe a goth Austen-hero? Not even Monty can pinpoint it, pulling Bucky aside to hiss “he thinks I know who he’s supposed to be, _help_”. Who wears bottle-green and black formal wear, curly black hair, and steampunk sunglasses? Loki is no help at all, simply smiling and thanking everyone for their compliments on his costume, Thor heartily bragging about his brother having spent _hours _on getting it just right.

(At some point, Loki will admit to it not being a specific costume and that he’d just liked the intense awkwardness of people pretending they actually knew who he was supposed to be. Thor, of course, had known and enabled him).

Around midnight, they’re all pleasantly tipsy and ready to carry out the more or less unwise shenanigans that tend to happen at the ΚΩΜ frat house. Bucky and Steve perform the entirety of Inigo and Westley’s sword fight (which Bucky will absolutely deny having practiced before; truth is Becca challenged him when they were kids and summarily whooped his ass and he couldn’t just let that stand, okay. That doesn’t explain why Steve knows every step, though). Stark has started mixing drinks; Peggy, dressed up as Evelyn O’Connell, is teaching her giggly girlfriend to lindy hop; and Scott and his small pack of friends are in a heated conversation that may or may not concern some sort of heist-plot that Bucky is resolutely not going to be a part of.

The end of the night sees Bucky and Steve sacked out in the backyard, still riding high on their swordfight and unable to stop touching. They’ve been quoting _The Princess Bride _all night, and it doesn’t look to be ending any time soon.

Bucky _has _started quoting some of Buttercup’s parts though, just because there’s more of them. “But Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.?”

“Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist,” Steve volleys back. His face is flushed with giddiness and alcohol, and he’s long since left his mask and scarf behind. Bucky risks a kiss to his cheek, and Steve smile so widely he rivals the sun itself.

“They do exist though!” Bucky insists. If he doesn’t keep talking, he’ll try and kiss Steve breathless, and there are other people in the yard. _Also_, his common sense reminds him, if only very faintly, _you’re not actually boyfriends, despite the kissing. Best remember that._ “Well, kinda. Not of unusual size, but unusual superiority. Like Sir Quirrel!”

Steve’s giggling, but it tapers off as he realizes what Bucky has just said. “What do you mean Sir—”

There’s a chitter and a streak of lightning, and then Sir Quirrel has attached himself to Steve’s shirt, ripping at the cloth to get to his pocket. Deft as a New York City pickpocket, he steals the little bag of toasted almonds that Steve’s been munching on all night, and scampers back into the tree.

Steve stands, astonished. “_Sir Quirrel is a fucking squirrel?_”


	16. 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bucky is love-sick and Steve makes an offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is gonna start me on earning that Mature rating

So. Bucky has a problem, and yes, it has to do with Steve. Of course, most of his problems these days revolve around Steve and whether or not he’d be tempting fate if he were to make a wedding-themed Pinterest board that just so happens to have the same color scheme as Steve’s eyes.

But this problem is of a bit more… personal nature.

In that Bucky is a healthy young man who’s in love with the guy he spends nearly all his time with. The guy he _kisses _on a regular basis. Hell, at this point he’s even felt Steve up a little, tracing the shape of his shoulders and hips and drawing him closer.

All that is to say that Bucky needs a lot of decompression time.

And by that he means jerking off.

Like, yes, he is so gone on Steve he’d write Hozier-style sonnets if he had a single poetic bone in his body, but that doesn’t mean that his sexual fantasies are in any way lessened. The domestic notions he has of a brownstone in Brooklyn, a little backyard, a sunlit study, of waking up to Steve being a grump in the morning, those co-exist perfectly with his decidedly more R-rated fantasies. Bucky’s sexuality is, at this point, pretty much whatever Steve did, whatever Steve wore, however Steve was the last time Bucky saw him.

Before getting to know him, Bucky hadn’t really had those fantasies. After all, when he’d first met Steve, they’d been kids. At most, Bucky had envisioned their wedding, him and Steve beaming at their guests, one of them wearing a white suit (that he now knows is an utterly hideous color for a suit, no, he will not accept otherwise). It hadn’t been sexual then, and when Bucky hit puberty, it had seemed a tad too icky to fantasize like that. Bucky hadn’t known how to imagine Steve as anything other than a kid, and he’d turned his attentions elsewhere.

That is not an issue anymore, and Bucky’s private-time repertoire has undergone severe expansions in just the last few months. He’s becoming a pro at the quick-and-quiet orgasm, carefully not spending too much time in the shower, sneaking out of his room when Steve sleeps over so that he won’t notice just how affected Bucky is in the morning (and night, and evening, and every time Steve so much as looks at him).

It’s getting more and more difficult. Steve likes sitting in Bucky’s lap when they kiss, likes to pull his hair to guide him, likes to press so close they can feel each other’s heartbeats. All that is enough to keep Bucky going for months, but there’s been a new and actually not-so-surprising development to that routine. Since Halloween, the black dye in Bucky’s hair has been leaving stains on everything as it fades, and with how much time Steve spends putting his hands in Bucky’s hair? Their messing around leaves traces.

Bucky’s poor heart—and libido—can’t help it. In his dreams, the black stains spread, Bucky rubbing his head against every inch of Steve’s body. The stains change color, becomes pearlescent drops that Bucky rubs into Steve’s skin, until Steve is marked by his kisses and his cum and—

What he’s saying is: thank God for lube, or there’d have been some serious chafing by now. It’s like going through puberty all over again, he’s changing underwear almost as frequently as he did when he first found out what a wet dream was.

So of course Steve ups the ante, because why wouldn’t he. In his defense, he doesn’t know what he’s doing to Bucky. And, he really can’t be held responsible for any of it, so there’s that.

They’re on another fake-date, this time at the farmer’s market. Ever since the first one, they’ve been going on little outings that keep everyone else from getting suspicious and allow them to collect a scrapbook’s worth of pictures for if Rumlow should ever demand proof. (No one has asked to see the pictures yet. Bucky has one of them as his phone wallpaper. That’s neither here nor there).

“Are you doing the fundraising fair this year?” Steve asks as they’re resting their legs at a bench, eating just-out-of-the-fryer churros. There’s sugar on his lips, and his nose is pink from the cold. “Or are you gonna change it up?”

“Change it up,” Bucky says, definitely not bursting at the seams to jump Steve then and there. “The fair’s fun, but we’ve done it a lot, you know? We’ve been in touch with some different non-profits, offering our help and such, it looks real promising.”

Steve hums. “And better than the Sigma Taus, right?”

“Of course, Stevie, they’re doing sexy carwashes _again_. And wanna bet they’ll donate it all to that guy Pierce’s fund?”

“The politician? Fuck that guy.” He’s quiet for a beat. “So you’re probably gonna be spending a lotta time doing that, yeah?”

Bucky shoves him gently. “Aw, Stevie, you gon’ miss me?”

“Fuck off, that’s not what I meant. I was just thinking that… so, okay, you know I got that art project, right? The one you think you’re so sneaky about asking about? Yeah, so, I was thinking that maybe… you’d like to sit—okay, you know what, if you’re gonna make that face, I’m gonna find someone else—”

“I would love to sit for you, Stevie,” Bucky says, fluttering his lashes at him. Finally he’ll know what the hell Steve has been so secretive about! “Draw me like one of your French girls.”

His smile slips when Steve tells him that that’s kind of what he’s going to do.

The project is called _Pin-Ups for Pride_. “We had to take a popular artform and put a new spin on it, so I figured, ‘hey, what’s more pop-art than the pin-up’? And my spin is going to be the shift in gaze, from the heteronormative male gaze to the queer gaze, and because the course focuses on America art, I’m aiming for an art style between J.C. Leyendecker’s ads and Charles Demuth’s precisionist portrait posters.”

Bucky is not going to be fully naked—it’s pin-ups, not porn, Steve tells him, hardly making eyecontact and flushing something awful. However, there’s a certain level of sensuality to Steve’s paintings, especially because they’re focused on queer desire. Steve’s other paintings in the series are a testament to that, a glimpse into something intimate beyond the sexual.

Each subject has been allowed construct the idea of themselves that they want portrayed, what emotion they want to communicate, how it feels to be the object of desire. At the same time, they’re also consciously looking back, and just viewing the paintings feels like glancing through a door to a world you weren’t aware existed.

Peggy and Angie’s painting is a beautiful rendering of an old-fashioned boudoir, the two of them in vintage lingerie with robes slipping off their shoulders. It oozes sex, but also familiarity, the love between them clear to see. It’s like being party to their shared fantasy, all the more potent for how Peggy has her head turned to look the viewer in the eye. You’re looking at them, but they’re looking at you and enjoying it. You are not in control.

Thor is painted slung across a bed, clothed in just a t-shirt and a pair of small, tight boxer briefs. Steve has shades it so beautifully, the light falling across Thor’s eyes and his long, rumpled hair, every inch of his posture an invitation. It’s like every fantasy of a big, soft husband waiting for you to come home to him. There’s focus on his body, but not on his strength. He makes you feel safe. 

Loki’s painting is gorgeous and almost closer to the classical pin-up than the other two. He’s perched on a chair, a small, intimate smirk teasing at the corner of his lips, a button-up shirt hanging open over his chest. He’s pulling on long, silky stockings, about to attach them to a garter belt. His hair is down and his eyes heavy-lidded, and he—_she_, for Loki is a woman in this moment, shedding her male form—radiates pleasure.

There are other paintings, too, people Bucky only vaguely knows. Tony, Carol Danvers, one of Thor’s friends called Brunnhildr. They’re all so gorgeous, so stunning they make you loose your breath. 

“How will you paint me, then?” Bucky asks.

“That’s up to you, Buck. That’s kind of the thing.”

What to say to that? What won’t be too honest, too raw? “Come _on_, Stevie, help me out. Do you want your hard work to be ruined? ‘Cause giving me control of your project is how it gets ruined. Can’t you just paint me like you want me?”

Steve hesitates. “Is that what you want? To be painted as if in desire?”

With phrasing like that, how could Bucky resist? 


	17. 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which communication is non-existent and Steve and Bucky have some creative uses for bodypaint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't wait until tomorrow, so here ya go. if you're just checking in right this second, remember to read the chapter before this one, too, it's a double update!
> 
> ALSO: WARNINGS:  
\- NSFW

It starts like this, almost like a dream.

The studios are fully booked, so they end up at Steve’s apartment. Sam has left for the day, citing pressing matters to attend to elsewhere, but Bucky overheard him tell Steve to _get some _before running out the door. Steve hasn’t stopped blushing yet.

One corner of the living room has been cleared of all furniture, except a lone, wooden chair that’s stained with all kinds of paint anyway, and clear plastic sheets have been spread out prevent staining the floors and walls.

“Really, thank you for doing this,” Steve says, fussing with his paints to avoid looking Bucky in the eye. “It pushes most people’s personal boundaries, especially when they’ve never sat for a portrait before.”

The anxiety is getting to Bucky, too, but he’s not going to admit that. He’s been tossing and turning all night, half-hard despite his nerves, and he’d made sure to get himself taken care of before showing up. If he pops a stiffy during the session, he’s going to _die_. “Just tell me where you want me.”

He’s sent off to change in the bedroom alone. Steve had told him to wear a pair of jeans that made him feel sexy, but that he also wouldn’t mind getting paint on, and all he really has to do is shed his socks, shirts, and belt. His jeans are old and worn thin, clinging to his thighs and ass, showing off everything. After a beat, he strips those off, too, sheds his underwear, and puts the pants back on.

The things he does for _art_.

He’d never do this if it weren’t for Steve’s earnest plea to use him as his subject. Strutting around with no underwear on in front of the guy you want is a bit preposterous when you aren’t sure that he actually wants you back—even downright creepy if you’re particularly bad at picking up cues. Even in this situation, he’s a little uncertain about his welcome.

Steve, however, is instantly focused the second he sees Bucky. It’s honestly a little insulting; he doesn’t even _look_, at least not how you look at a lover. Instead, he rambles about natural light and how to create the best shading, poking and prodding Bucky into position in a way that really shouldn’t be turning him on as much as it does. He can’t help it, okay? At least his dick stays down.

The first part of the process is… not what Bucky had pictured.

Maybe he shouldn’t have used _Titanic _as a source, but there’s a whole lot less sexual tension and a whole lot more trying to ignore various body parts falling asleep as Steve sketches some warm-ups. When they finally settle on the right pose for the painting, Bucky’s reached a headspace that’s largely white noise and sleepy disgruntlement.

It’s stupid, but he wants Steve to look at him. Fuck the theory of the queer gaze and subjectivity, Bucky wants to be an object just this once. Wants to have Steve looking at him like he’s looking at Steve, all heavy-lidded desire. He feels inordinately brave from this side of the easel, as if he could bare his soul and bear the consequences easily. As he could finally say, _I don’t want to be your _fake _boyfriend. I just want to be yours. _

But Steve is lost, doesn’t connect reality to the picture he’s creating. Bucky could get down on one knee and propose, and all Steve would do was tell him to turn his shoulders a bit more to catch the light. He’s got a streak of graphite on his cheek, unintentionally highlighting the curve of his cheekbone. Bucky wants to put his mouth on it.

“Okay,” Steve says. “I’ve got the basic shape down, some of the details. Let’s do the paint now.”

He doesn’t mean the paint for the painting—that’ll be done later. No, he’d offered to paint Bucky _as if with desire, _and that’s what they’re going to do. Bucky stands up, heart picking up speed. This is what he’s dreamed of, what he imagined when he touched himself this morning. _Keep it together, Barnes. Now is not the time. _

Steve has laid out the paints they’ll be using, cobalt blue, sharp pink, and royal purple. He dips his fingers, spreads the paint across his hands. With a raise of his brows he asks, _are you ready? _Bucky nods, tilts up his chin as if to present himself for inspection.

And Steve gets to work.

How Bucky keeps it together for those first minutes, he doesn’t know. He should get a medal for it, though. Some flowers, too. The paint is cool on his skin, trailing goosebumps, and Steve’s fingers are gentle, or at least they start out like that. They tremble at first, belying his placid expression, barely leaving a trace on Bucky’s skin.

“I won’t break,” Bucky says, whispers almost.

Steve’s eyes flicker upwards. Something smolders behind all that calm concentration, something reckless that makes Bucky shudder. Steve sets his jaw, nods.

He starts from the top; cupping Bucky’s face, tracing his bottom lip with his thumb, pulling at it a little. His eyes follow the movement, devouring. Bucky had shaved right after Halloween, getting rid of the moustache, and he shaved just this morning, too. The contrast between his smooth skin and Steve’s calloused fingers is dizzying.

He runs his finger through Bucky’s hair, painting his curls in shades of blue and purple. Traces a pattern of pink down his throat, around the back of his neck. Leaves fully formed handprints on his shoulders, metal and flesh both, cuff-like shadows around his wrists.

He runs his hands over Bucky’s chest, a path of purple. They both exhale shakily when he cups Bucky’s pecs, first one, then the other, an almost illicit sort of caress, not usually the thing you’d do with another man. He leaves streaks along Bucky’s belly and sides, like scratches from a lover. 

He pauses at the waist of Bucky’s jeans.

Bucky’s hard; there’s not hiding it. Not even the jeans can hold him down much, makes him look almost obscene instead. His blood runs hot with humiliation; this wasn’t supposed to happen, God, this was a stupid idea, why did he say yes—

Steve’s hands are trembling. “Do you want…?”

He can’t mean… he can’t mean _that, _can he? He _can’t_, but Bucky _wants_. “Just ignore it, it’ll go away, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be, I want—I can take of you.” Steve’s eyes are blazing, lips red from how he’s chewing on them. It nearly enough to make Bucky groan out loud. His voice shakes. “We can just—I mean, why don’t we just? We’re already pretending, why not this, too?”

When his head clears, Bucky’s heart will break into a hundred tiny little pieces. _We’re already pretending, why not this, too? _But right now, he’d say anything to keep Steve touching him. Bad decisions don’t exist. He can only nod and unbutton his pants.

Gently, Steve pulls his hands away, quickly taking over for Bucky. There’s still paint on his fingers, and it is like every fantasy that Bucky has ever had when Steve pets the hair leading down to his cock, both of them shivering.

“I should wash my hands first—”

“_Don’t_. Please, Stevie.”

Steve pulls his face down, presses their lips together. There’s nothing sweet about this kiss, but Bucky doesn’t care. He moans when their tongues tangle, gives himself over to Steve entirely, clutching at the back of Steve’s shirt. He just wants him closer, wants to exist in the same breath.

And that’s when Steve slides his hand into Bucky’s pants and palms his cock.

Bucky exhales, shaky and sharp, head thudding onto Steve’s shoulder. He’s hunched over, curling his body to fit around Steve’s smaller frame. Steve presses kissed into his neck, tongue tracing apologies, whispering how he’s never done this before, Bucky has to tell him how, he’s only ever touched himself.

It drives Bucky wild, out of his head and into the stratosphere. They end up pressed against the sheet-covered wall, Bucky’s arms caging Steve in and hips pumping shallowly into his hand. The paint—some kind of thick, watery body-paint—makes his grip so smooth, so _wet_, the squelch deafened by their heavy breathing.

They’re anything but elegant, desperate and clingy and focused on nothing but touching one another. Bucky pushes his pants down a little, just enough to free himself, breathing easier when Steve’s grip firms up, just like Bucky likes it. His thumb swipes at the head of his cock, paint and pearly precum mixing and Bucky nearly comes then and there.

Instead, he groans and gets his hands around Steve’s thighs, lifting him up.

Steve moans, the first real sound he’s made yet and wraps his legs around Bucky. To keep him making noises, Bucky puts his teeth to his neck, nips along his skin. They’re getting paint all over Steve’s clothes, but none of them care, both trying to get closer, Steve’s hand caught between them, squeezing Bucky so, so good.

And Steve’s hard, too.

Bucky doesn’t realize at first, too caught up in what’s being done to him to recognize the shape pressing against him. When he does, he stutters out a moan, grinds his hips up into Steve, making him cry out as if shocked.

“Stevie, please, let me—”

“_Yes_, God, _please_.”

They can’t strip Steve out of his pants, not completely, not if Bucky keeps holding him up, and he’s not about to let go. Instead, they just pull him out of his pants; Bucky’s so far gone that all he can think is _pretty, pretty, pretty. _The smell of their rutting, the sweat, the musk, it consumes him, makes him want to roll around in it forever.

He’s getting close; can feel it moving through his spine, spreading outwards from his groin, the pressure building, building. He’s an incoherent mess, just groans and pants and kisses pressed to Steve’s lax mouth. All he can think if that Steve has to come first, he has to make it good for him, he wants him to say Bucky’s name, to kiss the sighs from his lips.

Redoubling his efforts, he quickly licks his fingers. Steve mewls at that, hips stuttering. It makes their cocks brush, makes both of them cry out. Bucky carefully, gently, pushes them together, takes them both in hand. He’s touching Steve, he’s making him make those noises, he’s making him fall apart, this is all he’s ever wanted—

When Steve comes, he goes quiet, mouth falling open. Bucky takes it all in, keeps jerking him until he curls forward, clinging to Bucky and saying his name like a prayer.

That’s when Bucky comes, too, staining Steve’s skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont know if bodypaint like this exists, but lets just assume that it does


	18. 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which neither of them know when to quit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some angst snuck its way in here, i dont know what happened.

In the aftermath, Bucky’s brain is all happy mush and lazy contentment. You’d be hard pressed to find a single coherent thought in the mess of _pretty _and _want _and _love _that’s floating through his gray matter, and he can’t stop touching Steve, can’t part his lips from Steve’s skin. He kisses through sweat and paint, one sharp and salty, the other briny and disgusting, but it’s on Steve’s skin because of Bucky, because of his desire, so how can he hate it?

They’ve collapsed against the wall, Steve’s legs still parted across Bucky’s lap, leaving his body open and welcoming and so, so beautiful. He runs his fingers across Bucky’s neck, down his chest, trembling like he can’t quite believe what they’ve done. If it weren’t for the way he draws Bucky back to his lips, Bucky would’ve let him up by now. Below, their bellies kiss wetly, a slippery squelch that is at once a little nasty and a lot thrilling.

When they finally pull apart, not far, just enough to get a good look at one another, Bucky breaks the silence with a startled laugh. _He _was supposed to be the painted one, but Lord, Steve has become the masterpiece. There’s paint across his cheeks and his lips, streaking his arms and his belly and his cock, mixing with drying cum, and Bucky did that, he marked him like that, like Steve was his.

Steve gasps. “Hold that!”

And reality reenters.

Pushed off and back onto the stool, Bucky grumpily lets Steve slip from his arms and back into artist-mode, pretty, blue eyes focused once more. He lets it happen though, lets Steve take the lead and follows gladly, pants barely buttoned and cum starting to itch on his skin. He’s barely even tucked back into his pants, not even a pin-up anymore; if Steve paints him like this, it’ll be straight-up porn.

It takes Steve several minutes to even remember what they’ve just done, only doing so when he bends and the cum on his own skin starts to flake off. Blushing furiously, he offers Bucky a washcloth, barely able to look him in the eyes.

And Bucky’s heart sinks.

Is this… was it just the heat of the moment? Steve had said—fuck, Steve _had _said it was just another part of their pretending, hadn’t he? Why, why, _why_ hadn’t Bucky listened, how could he have let himself take it this far, God, he’s used Steve, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, what kind of idiot—

“Buck?”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay? You look a little—” Steve waves awkwardly, still not quite meeting his eyes.

And Bucky lies like his life depends on it. Because it does. “No, no. Don’t worry about me, Stevie. I’m fine. A little overwhelmed, ‘cause, holy hell, that was… that was amazing, yeah?” _Please say yes. Please. I’ll beg for it_. 

Thankfully, Steve nods, a tiny, lovely smirk pulling at his lips. They’re quiet for a moment, fragile. Finally, Steve meets his eyes. “Is it because of that guy? The one you’re in love with?”

_Yes. _But Bucky can’t say that. Shrugs his shoulders instead, tries to sound nonchalant. “Don’t worry about him, Steve.”

Steve sets his jaw, fiddles with the painting. “What’s he like?”

“Steve—” Bucky sighs.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… I’m curious. I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

Steve shrugs. “Why he’s not with you.”

Bucky forces a laugh, barely daring to hope. “Why, that was almost a compliment. You trying to tell me something?” _Please_.

But Steve shakes his head, each movement tearing Bucky’s heart apart.

And Bucky, because he’s stupid and hurting and wants to bare his teeth at the world, even at Steve, tells him. Tells Steve about ‘the guy’, a nameless, faceless ghost whom Steve thinks he has nothing in common with. Tells him how Bucky is in love with a fantasy—it’s not even a lie, is it? What they’re doing, the things they’re playing at, it’s all pretend. The guy, he’s just someone Bucky built up in his head, someone he saw once and never forgot. Couldn’t, even if he tried. Through it all, Steve eyes grow stormier and stormier.

“He’s an idiot, Buck,” he says. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Who the fuck wouldn’t love you back?”

_You_.

*

An hour later, and Bucky’s allowed to get up from the chair. He slinks off to the bathroom, runs a washcloth under lukewarm water and starts the arduous process of washing off the paint. It’d be easier to jump in the shower, but Bucky’s feeling raw and vulnerable, and getting naked would fuck him up, would break what last composure he’s clinging to by the tips of his fingers.

He’d seen Steve’s painting and nearly cried. It was just the last straw, he’d already been choking down tears while he sat on the stool and tried to not exist. Steve has truly painted him in desire; heavy-lidded eyes, a trail of fingerprints leading down into his pants, body soft, mouth curled into a come-hither smile. Steve had seen it all, and yet he hadn’t _seen. _He’d seen it all and felt nothing in return.

There’re only so many blows a fella can take before he breaks, okay?

And yet, Bucky’s treacherous, broken heart seizes on everything. On Steve’s protective outrage towards ‘the guy’, on the way he’d trembled in Bucky’s arms, on the way he’d wanted Bucky, even if it was just for a moment. What kind of idiot gets himself into this kind of mess? What kind of fool thinks he can outsmart love?

Well. This fool, obviously. Bucky has got no one to blame but himself. Maybe Steve, too—but really, can he be faulted? It’s not his fault that Bucky’s gone on him, that Bucky spun a stupid lie, that Bucky said yes to this whole scheme. Sure, Steve had the bright idea, but Bucky happily jumped on it. He’s the worst, a creep, a cad. God, he deserves everything coming to him. 

Steve knocks on the door, a little reserved. “Mind if I join?”

Bucky scooches over, clears his face of emotion. It’s not enough. Steve freezes at his side, peers intently at Bucky in the mirror. Almost tender, he slips his hand around Bucky’s metal wrist, squeezes.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For what I said about him. It’s not my place—”

Bucky kisses him to shut him up. He shouldn’t, should just walk away, get out while he still can, while it won’t yet kill him. They could be friends, Bucky could keep it all hidden, he just wants to be by Steve’s side. Instead, he does this, desperately.

How could he not? This stubborn, wonderful love of his life, he didn’t sign up for any of this. But he kisses back, whispers Bucky’s name, smears the left-over paints even more. How could Bucky ever resist him when he so gladly pretends, too?

They end up rutting against each other against the sink, Steve leaving marks all over his neck and shoulders like he’s got something to prove. Like he can tear the sadness and unrequired longing straight from Bucky. Like he’s saving him with every kiss. 

The road to hell is not a road at all; it’s a free fall. And Bucky willingly jumps. 


	19. 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which things get even more complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are approaching the end, folks! dunno how many chapters left just yet, but the epilogue is written and the (happy!) ending has taken shape in my mind. hopefully, i can get it all done before christmas.

First of all: Bucky knows how stupid he’s being. Second of all: he _knows_, okay. He should’ve walked away, told Steve that he couldn’t go on like this, begged him to still be friends, and surrendered himself to heartbreak and healing and become the best friend Steve could possibly want.

Suffice to say: he does not.

Instead, Bucky’s nether-brain makes the call and now he’s got a fake boyfriend whom he regularly gets off with. They never go all the way, or even beyond hand jobs and frotting, but whenever they get a moment alone, at least one of them end up with his pants around his knees and gasping. Even when there are other people around, they’ve got their hands on one another, though in a much more innocent manner. (They still manage to attract more than a few kissy-faces and salacious winks, because their friends are all not-so-secretly _children_).

Bucky’s never been as happy as he is right now. Or as sad, because it’s all pretend.

At best, they’re friends with benefits. At worst, their expiration date is coming up fast; November is a mess of last-minute additions to the Greek Life Championships, of baseball practice and games, of intense study and studio sessions. The semester is ending, and with it… maybe Bucky-and-Steve, too.

Bucky’s anxiety leaks into his surroundings, all the more obvious for how quickly he crashes after a moment of joy. The Howlies have all noticed; Dum Dum has tried to sit him down a couple of times and talk it out, and Bucky makes worse and worse excuses to get out of them. Monty tried calling a Definitely-Not-an-Intervention frat moot focused on mental health and “totally random scenarios that in no way are inspired by any specific situation or person”. Bucky had sat through it and simply refused to engage. He can’t tell them. He’s in too deep; at this point telling them will be equal to pissing all over their aggressive mother-henning.

It gets worse. Because they sic Steve on him.

Steve, with his soft, fretful eyes and careful hands and gentle voice. He could pull Bucky apart so easily, but Bucky must be strong, must endure. He distracts Steve with kisses, learns to trace the shape of his tattoos with his tongue, how to draw him out of his mind and into Bucky’s arms, one hand around his neck, the other around his cock.

But Steve is stubborn. And much as it sometimes seems otherwise, he isn’t blind either. He notices Bucky’s odd moods, the graceless subject changes. But despite everything, the only way to keep it all at bay is to keep Steve around as much as possible. So they go on (friend) dates, they sleep in each other’s beds, they show up at anything and everything a real boyfriend would and countless other things besides. He learns Steve inside out as he himself becomes seen, becomes _known_.

They’re together so often that sometimes Bucky just… forgets that it isn’t real.

He forgets when Steve is running his hands through Bucky’s hair and smiling down at him like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He forgets when they talk and it’s easy and he loses his breath. When his heart swells with every single second they know each other. He could take on the world like this.

All the while, Thanksgiving—and thus: the Championship finale, the end of all things, it seems—looms closer.

Bucky’s not ready for it to end. Not ready for _them _to end. They had a deal, this was all to keep Rumlow at bay, to keep their friends from asking questions. What will happen when their excuses run out? Will he lose Steve, completely? What if Steve realizes that Bucky’s no good, that he’s a liar, that he’s let himself forget and used Steve? (When Bucky tries to sleep at night, with or without Steve curled up at his side, those thoughts run wild, and it’s all downward from there).

The day before Thanksgiving, it all changes.

They’re at Steve’s apartment, Steve fussing with the last details on his pin-up series, Bucky doing some editing for his final essay, when Sam walks through the door, phone in his hand. These last few weeks, Sam’s been giving Bucky _Looks_ (actually, he’s been giving Bucky _Looks_ from the beginning, and Bucky hasn’t quite figured out why exactly. He thinks that maybe Sam thinks that he isn’t good for Steve, except then he’ll turn around and be encouraging the next moment. It’s enough to give a guy a stress ulcer).

“First of all,” Sam declares, drawing their attention. He looks very imploring. “I was bamboozled. Second of all, I didn’t know you hadn’t said anything. Lastly, _this is not my fault_.” Then he hands Steve the phone and hightails it out of there.

Steve, frowning, puts the phone to his ear and carefully greets whomever is waiting on the other end. Over the next minute, his face goes through a true rollercoaster of an emotional journey. It starts like this: wide eyes, jaw falling open, skin paling. And it goes like this: an anxious flush creating fever-like splotches of red across his throat, voice cracking. And finally, it ends like this: a sickly, mad grin as he puts the phone back down, already sprinting after his best friend. “_Samuel Thomas Wilson!_”

Bucky has to physically pick them apart, picking Steve up under one arm like a misbehaving terrier, using the other to keep Sam at bay. They’re both still slapping at each other and spewing various inventive names back and forth like ping-pong balls. Bucky’s favorites are “you unfried, moldy potato” and “that’s _Mr_. Disaster to you!”

“Someone explain,” he orders, cutting through their squabbling.

“Yes, Sam,” Steve chimes in, still trying to reach around Bucky to maul his best friend. “_Explain_ _yourself_.”

“You explain yourself!”

“So help me God, I will call Natasha!” Bucky threatens.

Finally, results. Though not exactly any he’d like to hear.

*

Bucky is meeting Steve’s Ma. _Bucky _is _meeting _Steve’s _Ma_.

He’s going to _die._

Sam, the poor bastard, had been minding his own business, confirming Christmas lunch plans with Sarah Rogers as he always does around this time of year. Casually, he’d mentioned Bucky—because really, at this point you can barely mention Steve without mentioning Bucky; the reverse is just as true at the Howlie house. Sarah Rogers had gone quiet.

“Steven has a boyfriend?”

And now they’re here.

‘Here’ being frantically browsing the Westchester mall for something, _anything, _Bucky can possibly bring his fake-mother-in-law (okay, that’s overstating things, but sue him, if he had to fake-marry Steve to keep this whole charade going he would do it in a heartbeat, to hell with his bruised heart. He’s the master of his own choices, even the really bad ones).

No one—_no one_—has had anything helpful to say to this. Steve keeps saying “no, you really don’t have to bring anything, she’s not expecting you to, Bucky,_ Bucky_, stop looking up hundred-dollar flower arrangements, Jesus fuck.”

Sam is _worse. _“Listen carefully,” he had said, appearing next to Bucky like a ghost the second Steve was out of sight. “You’ve got _one shot_, buddy. Sarah Rogers does not fuck around.”

Out of options (because the Howlies had mostly just panicked along with him and fanned the fire, suggesting that he honest-to-God buy a star and name it after Steve to prove how serious he was to Sarah), he’d run crying to Peggy, the only other person he knows to have faced down Sarah Rogers for her son’s hand.

“Sam’s being dramatic,” she’d told Bucky, rolling her eyes. “Sarah’s a perfectly nice woman.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“She can be a little… intense, though—no, no, no, don’t cry! Blast it, okay, here we go.”

He’s brought Scott along, because he needs someone who is as big a disaster as he currently is (he could’ve brought Clint, too, but he’s not sure he can handle the Scott-and-Clint show right now, his nerves are very sensitive). Tony has tagged along, too, uninvited and not real helpful, but that’s mostly because he spends his time trying to lead Scott to the logical conclusion that Clint is just as crazy about him and he is about Clint. It is… not working. _Idiots_.

Bucky fondles a scarf. It’s tartan, imported directly from Scotland, very soft, pretty colors. Hopefully, Sarah would adore—holy fuck, is that the price? Why not just ask for his soul and call it a day? Abort mission, this is terrible.

Is crying in the middle of a department store a sign of bad life choices?

The security guard watching them with pity on his face seems to say: _yes_.

It helps that Scott is having a similar meltdown. “He’s been teaching me to sign better,” he says, hopelessly endearing. “He taught me a pick-up line yesterday, well, he tried, but I must’ve messed it up real bad, because he just kept hiding his face in his hands.”

Tony makes a despairing noise into his coffee.

And, because Bucky’s life isn’t hard enough, that’s when his phone chirps.

**Dum Dum**: _I want to say_

**Dum Dum**: _from the bottom of my heart_

**Dum Dum**: _MY BAD_

Bucky is about to text back a long line of question marks, when his phone blows up again.

**Becca**: _YOU GOT A BF AND DIDN’T TELL ME_

**Becca**: _IS THIS REVENGE???_

**Becca**:_ BETRAYED BY MY OWN FLESH AND BLOOD_

**Becca**:_ oopsie I thought the others knew_

**Ma**:_ James Buchanan Barnes, you bring that boy home or so help me God_

**Dad**:_ It is best to just go along with her, son_

**Grandma**: _Dear James, Rebecca says you have a boyfriend. Is he a nice boy? Does he like sweaters? Is he allergic to anything, or have diet restrictions? Love, Grandma. _

So this is how he dies.


	20. 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Steve and Bucky talk and still manage to dance around what really matters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my love of writing dreams snuck into this chapter.  
i'm pretty sure i'm gonna have the next chapter ready tomorrow, it is already half-written and much happier than this one!

Steve seems to take the news better than Bucky had. _Seems _being the key word here. He becomes a little quiet, then nods at Bucky like all is right in the world, and goes back to whatever tiny detail on his pin-ups that absolutely needs to be corrected (last time, it had been the reflection of light in their eyes, something that Bucky sincerely doubts the professors are going to be looking for in semi-stylized paintings, but what does he know).

And then, half-way through December, he wakes up in the middle of the night to Steve hovering above him like a particularly anxious vampire. “_Do all your sisters have brown eyes?_”

Bucky blinks, squinting. Steve hadn’t slept over, how the hell—“Is that blood?”

“No,” Steve lies.

“… Who did you fight this time?”

“_I didn’t start it!_”

Bucky doubts that. Especially because when he finally bullies Steve into letting him clean him up a bit, he finds Steve in the bathroom making threatening gestures at something outside the window. “Don’t make me come out there!”

“_Steve_. Stop threatening… whoever. If it’s Sir Quirrel, remember last time? If it’s the ghost of Hart Crane, _definitely_ stop, he’s not a poltergeist just yet and we like it like that.”

“You’re haunted by Hart Crane? The poet?”

“Well, we _think _it’s him at least.”

“I could kick his ass. I’ll kick anyone’s ass.”

“You look like you got your own ass kicked, so how about we cool it. Who even let you in?”

“Dernier. He kinda smelled like smoke?”

“Don’t ask, I beg you. As long as nothing’s on fire, we operate on a _don’t ask, don’t tell_ basis that keeps us all sane. Now lemme see that.”

Steve is not too badly injured this time (that and the fact that no police had been called seems to make him think that it’s all good). It was just a scuffle, he says, with another art student in the twenty-four-hour stationery store on campus over the last set of earth-toned watercolor pencils. His nose is only bleeding _a little bit_ from an accidental elbow to the face (and then the fisticuffs). The way he talks about it, it really sounds like that kind of thing is to be expected during the exam period in the art department.

“Why the hell were you even at the store at… two in the morning, Jesus.”

Steve looks away. “No reason.”

“_Stevie_.”

“Your family is going to hate me,” he blurts, eyes widening like he can’t believe he just said that. “My gift is awful, they’re gonna think I’m cheap, and I’m never gonna get it right, so it’ gonna be awful, I only have Facebook pictures to go on, and I can’t see your sisters’ eye color properly, but it’s all that I’ve got, and I want them to like me and—” he burrows into Bucky, hiding his face in his neck and mumbling more and more outrageous doomsday scenarios.

This is not the time to laugh, but damn, three cheers for sweet revenge and all that. Bucky’s been so stressed with the whole meeting-Sarah-Rogers thing, and he’ll admit to being just a tad jealous that Steve had seemed to take meeting Bucky’s family in a stride. Seeing that he’s just as much of a mess is beyond comforting. It means they’re on the same page (well, mostly. Without the whole ‘you’re the love of my life’ aspect on Steve’s side of things).

“All my sisters’ eyes are brown, yes,” he tells Steve, gently patting his hair and swaying him back and forth in a gentle rhythm. “I’m the only one who got Ma’s eyes. As for all the rest; that’s bull. They’re gonna love you, Stevie. You’re the best guy I ever knew.”

Steve breathes a little easier, but his tight grip doesn’t loosen.

He ends up staying the night. They seamlessly sneak back into Bucky’s room without waking Monty (who can sleep through _anything_: he once slept through the evacuation of the entire neighboring apartment block which included a) sirens, b) low-flying helicopters, and c) lots of distressed people yelling and complaining). Curled around one another, Bucky easily slips back into the space between asleep and awake, that state where half-formed dreams dance at the edge of your vision and the smallest movement makes you feel like you’re free-falling.

Until Steve whispers, “Buck… what are we doing?”

And he’s wide awake, heart sinking fast. _Stall_. “What do you mean?”

Steve hand clenches in his shirt. “I… we’ve taken this farther than we should’ve, haven’t we? We’re lying to, well, everyone. My Ma didn’t even know I was bisexual, this isn’t really how I saw coming out to her going. She’s supportive and all, it’s not that, but fuck, she thinks we’ve been together for months and that I’ve been hiding you because I’m ashamed of you—” his breath stutters.

Bucky’s broken heart beats a heavy thump, twisting with every word and every worry. This was why he hadn’t told his family either. “I—yeah. You’re right.”

“It’s just… it’s been so easy. Being with you, it’s the easiest thing in the world. You’re—you’re one of my best friends, Buck, I don’t want that to end. But with what we’re doing, I just… I don’t know where the line is anymore.”

They’re much too close for this conversation. Twined like lovers but talking like they’re breaking up. But Bucky doesn’t want to push Steve away, doesn’t want to let go. Why can’t they just… be? Just switch off their brains and exist like this. No one’s getting hurt—well, no one _but _Bucky. “I don’t know what to tell you, Stevie. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“I’m not asking you to fix it, that’s not what I’m saying,” Steve says, voice a little rough. “I just wanna know… are we gonna be okay? I need—I need you to still be here, after. I never wanna lose you.”

Blinking away tears, one of them making a slow, aching track down his temple, Bucky clutches Steve tighter. “I don’t wanna lose you either, Stevie. And… when you decide, just know that I’m with you to the end of the line, wherever you draw it.”

Steve takes a shuddery breath, and for a moment, neither of them can speak. Then, he worms his way up Bucky’s body, plants an off-center kiss on his cheek (it ends up near the corner of his mouth) and whispers _thank you _like a prayer.

That night, Bucky dreams of forgetting.

He’s standing on a fairground, watching a merry-go-round. Steve’s arms are around him, chin hooked over his shoulders, and his voice is soft and happy and whispers secrets in Bucky’s ear. But then he pulls away, and the warmth of him disappears, not just from Bucky’s body, but his memories. He can’t remember how it felt to be held or to hold, can’t remember the taste of Steve’s sweet kisses, can’t remember the sound of his laugh or the shape of his frown. Can’t remember being next to him, being seen by him.

It’s like it never happened at all.

Suddenly, Steve is there. He grabs his hand and drags Bucky through the fairground, looking back at him with adoration in his eyes, and everything comes back. Every hurt, every joy, every strand of emotion in between, the lust and the love and the desperation. In that moment, Bucky is grateful to the sorrow. It means it was all real. It all happened. He loves Steve, and even if Steve doesn’t love him back, it’s okay. He made him happy for a while and will continue to do so as his friend. It’s all going to be okay.

He’s going to be okay, and Steve is going to be there.

It’s enough.


	21. 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bucky meets Sarah Rogers

The Howlies and their frat brothers place second in the Greek Life Championships, above the Sigma Taus and that’s really all that matters. They’re allowed one night of celebrating and then it’s back to work as the semester comes to a close in a whirlwind of exam stress and sleepless nights. If you manage even one square meal a day, you’re doing better than most of your peers; _they_ are only alive by the grace of energy drinks and vending machine snacks. Tony has started brewing coffee on Red Bull instead of water and is semi-certain that he ascended to the astral plane for at least half an hour the other day.

All in all, Bucky is lucky if he manages an hour without anyone doing or mentioning some form of revision. Steve’s a walking, talking paint splotch these days, wearing his glasses more often than not because his eyes are too red and itchy from lack of sleep to tolerate contact lenses. In addition, stress makes him (more) impulsive, and Bucky is ninety percent certain that he’s going to come home to some kind of body-modification any day now (he’s right; Steve gets a hoop piercing in his left nostril a week before Christmas).

And finally, finally, the holidays are upon them.

Bucky and Steve drive down separately, kissing each other goodbye in private first and then once more in view of their friends, even if its totally unnecessary to keep up the charade at this point. There’s not a single person alive who doubts their status as a couple, but it warms Bucky all the way through when Steve makes faces at the Howlies hooting and hollering on the sidelines.

“Here,” Steve says as they part, shoving a handsomely-wrapped gift into Bucky’s hands. “No opening it until Christmas. And because I _know _you’re gonna complain about the price, it was on sale.”

Bucky’s present for Steve is much less prettily wrapped, and a little squashed from having inhabited the bottom of his bag, but that’s okay. The present inside won’t break, it’s a sturdy little medallion ensconced in a jewelry box. “I promise to wait, but only if you do, too.”

One last hug, and they part.

“You’d think y’all were going off to war with the way you’re acting,” Gabe says. 

*

Bucky’s has always lived in Flatbush. His Ma is a born-and-bred Brooklynite; there’s a greater chance of Cthulhu emerging from the sea than Winifred Barnes ever leaving New York, and since Bucky is (unashamedly) a bit of a mama’s boy, he doubts he’ll ever live anywhere else either. He doesn’t mind though; he’s in love with his hometown, always has been, despite the gentrification that haunts every street these days. 

Upon entering the house, Bucky is immediately mobbed by the three goblins commonly known as his sisters, Becca, Rachel, and Ruth. He barely stays standing as they take their great pleasure in falling all over him, each one yelling louder than the other to get her thoughts across. “How could you not tell me about your boyfriend!” “Why haven’t you changed your Facebook status?” “I saw his Insta, he’s real cute!”

He’s saved by his Dad who offers him sanctuary in the kitchen (at the cost of slaving away over cookies, but there are worse things than baking with his Dad, and the girls are banned on grounds of ‘taste testing’ entire batches and leaving nothing for anyone else).

Still, not even George can keep entirely quiet. “I’m looking forward to meeting him,” he tells Bucky, trying to be nonchalant and utterly failing. The absolute mountain of shortbread cookies (Steve’s favorite) tell a tale of overinvestment.

With how exited everyone is, Bucky can almost pretend it’s all real.

The preparations for the arrival of the Brooklyn Barnes clan (which should really come with a warning to the general public) takes up every moment from then on, keeping him from dwelling on the truth too much. He helps his Ma put up the Christmas lights, bakes and cooks some more with his Dad, and shops the last gifts with his sisters and defiantly refuses to tell them anything, much to their consternation. He also fields oddly specific questions from his Grandma about Steve’s measurements that he has no earthly chance of knowing beyond “he’s maybe a size medium? A small medium?” He can _feel _her despairing at him from across town.

In a suspiciously well-timed stroke of luck, Bucky stumbles on an ad for a local ceramic shop just as he’s working himself into a panic over Sarah’s gift. The shop’s apprentice was approaching her finals, so they had some of her work up for sale, one of which was a delicate porcelain doll unlike any Bucky had ever seen before; a classic little ceramic lady in almost every aspect, from her pinned hair to her voluminous skirts, but there’s just one thing that makes her stand apart.

It’s perfect for Sarah. He hopes.

(He’s also getting flowers as a back-up. Monty has arranged for them, so at least those won’t be a complete failure).

And then, it’s Christmas Day, and time speeds up.

Bucky barely tastes the food at dinner and doesn’t remember which relative he’s said hi to or who gave him which present. He laughs, he’s sure, but he can’t recall the jokes, can’t settle into his usual holiday slouch, because all that matters is that tomorrow he’s meeting Sarah Rogers for an early dinner, and the day after, Steve will be coming home with him.

Is it too late to move to Siberia?

The dulcet tones of his alarm clock inform him that yes, it is.

Steve’s present to him was a pair of lace-up leather boots, and Bucky’s coordinating his entire outfit around them. He can’t be too formal, but he can’t exactly be outright casual either (right? _Right_?), which leaves him floundering. More than one pep-talk in front of the mirror happens. _I am charming. I am kind. I am a good person. I will be fine_.

Nearly an hour (and a group chat with the Howlies) later, Bucky is ready. He’s wearing his new boots, some sensible but seasonally appropriate socks in case the Rogerses are a no-shoes household, a pair of checkered, semi-casual slacks, and a big, chunky sweater that his Grandma had knitted for him. His hair, which he really should’ve gotten trimmed, is long enough that it doesn’t curl as easily, so all he really needed was some mousse to bully it into shape after his shower.

Exiting his room, he’s met with his sisters’ little gremlin grins and their “could you be any lamer, Mr. Charming-Kind-and-Good?” He flips them off (but only after checking that his Ma isn’t around). They scatter, Ruth and Rachel to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on Bucky and Becca’s teenage fashion disasters, and Becca to prepare for her own gallows walk as her boyfriend will also be visiting for the first time. Poor guy (though Bucky definitely pities himself the most of the two of them).

For the occasion, Bucky has been ‘gifted’ with the keys to the minivan. Though there’d been no snow on Christmas Day, overnight, New York City decided it needed to look more festive and added half a foot of thick, white fluff—which then started melting at noon only to refreeze end up a dangerous mix of slush and black ice. Driving through the city feels like driving through a warzone. Taking the subway and walking would’ve ruined his boots though; it’s a sacrifice Bucky is willing to make.

Steve lives in Park Slope, a stone’s throw from Prospect Park. By the grace of God, Bucky manages to park close by—meaning only one block down. Their apartment is on the second floor, above a Jewish Deli that Bucky will absolutely be coming back to, those sandwiches look amazing—

_Stop stalling, Barnes._

Before he knows it, he’s at the door, Sarah’s gift under one arm, her bouquet cradled in the other, and his duffle bag at his feet. Monty had said not to worry about flower-meanings, or rather “no one gives a fuck, Barnes, only over-involved writers care about that.” Bucky had just nodded and pretended he hadn’t looked up the language of flowers. The bouquet is gorgeous though, almost happy looking, all yellows, whites, sprightly greens, and the odd flush of pink.

After he knocks, there’s only a beat of waiting before the door opens.

Sarah Rogers is not a tall woman, but there’s something about her that makes her seem statuesque. She’s a lot like Bucky remembers her from his one glance at her in childhood, a fair-haired woman with big blue eyes and a crooked nose. She’s wearing what must be the world’s ugliest Christmas sweater and she exudes warmth and kindness. Bucky still feels like he’s only a few seconds from either throwing up or fainting.

“Hello, dear,” she says, a soft lilt to her accent. “Please come in.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rogers.” His voice does not crack. It _doesn’t_.

“Call me Sarah. Do you prefer James or Bucky? Sam and Steve only use the latter, but I don’t want to overstep.”

“Bucky is fine, ma’am.”

“_Sarah_, dear.”

Steve comes barreling down the hall, practically tripping into Bucky’s arms despite the packages he’s precariously balancing. They’ve spoken every day, and night, since parting, but still the sight of him hits Bucky like a punch to the chest; has Steve always glowed like he does in this moment? Has he always smelled this good?

Speaking of, Bucky should probably stop trying to bury his face in Steve’s hair right in front of Sarah. _Well done, great first impression you’re making here_.

Sarah definitely notices. There’s a little twinkle in her eyes as she gently herds them into the living room, somehow divesting Bucky of both the gifts, his bag, and his jacket without him really noticing. The apartment is small but homey, a little cluttered with an overflow of furniture and knick-knacks that Bucky carefully tiptoes around. Between the fae-like Rogerses, he feels a bit like an uncouth mountain troll.

“Those are for you ma’—_Sarah_,” he stutters, ignoring Steve snickering at him. 

“Oh, you shouldn’t have, sweetie. Steve, have you seen these? What lovely flowers.”

“The gift, too. It’s just something I stumbled on—you can absolutely return it! I’ve got the receipt… somewhere, hold on—”

Sarah’s already unwrapped it. Because of its delicate nature, Bucky had carefully put it in a box with packing paper before wrapping it. The porcelain figurine is about the size of Bucky’s hand, a beautiful little lady with red-gold hair and a sleeveless red dress. Even had it not been exquisitely shaped, the paintjob would’ve more than made up for it.

Especially because of the tattoos.

From her neck to her fingers, the porcelain girl is marked with old-school sailor-tattoos. She’s got an old-timey frigate across her back, a burning heart on her chest, and birds and flowers all over her arms.

“Oh, Bucky,” Sarah sighs, cradling the figurine like the greatest treasure. “I hope you didn’t go too far out of your way to find me something. You really didn’t need to.”

“It’s was no problem,” he lies through his teeth. Steve snorts.

Sarah pats his cheek. “I love it, dear. Now, I hope you’re hungry. Sit down, boys. Bucky, Steve tells me you met at a costume party…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter coming tomorrow!


	22. 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Sarah Rogers is the best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double-update today! this is the first half and SFW, the next half is decidedly not!

Dinner is a veritable feast of simple but hearty winter fare from ‘the old country’ as Sarah calls it, telling Bucky stories of her childhood in Ireland before her parents immigrated to America. Bucky’s not real hungry, a bit too nervous for that, really, but his Ma would show up and scold him if he didn’t at least try, and once he starts, there’s no stopping him. The fish stew is excellent, and the baked carrots are tender and buttery-soft in his mouth.

Sarah pulls him out his shell bit by bit, Steve half-helping and half-not by trying to spare Bucky her perfectly polite questions and talking faster and more than he usually does. Wise to his ways, Sarah doesn’t let her son talk circles around her, and without Bucky noticing, she succeeds in a softly-worded interrogation that goes much deeper than he’ll realize for a while yet.

“—and that’s how Steve lost to the squirrel for the fourth time,” he says, holding Steve’s hands away from his face so that he can tell Sarah the story.

“That’s not what happened!”

“Of course not, dear,” Sarah says, sipping her after-dinner tea angelically and winking at Bucky when Steve squawks. “I trust you’d never get into an argument with a squirrel. You’re much to even-tempered for that.”

Steve grumbles. “Stop being mean to me.” 

They’ve drifted closer and closer as dinner progressed, so much so that whereas Steve started out sitting catty-corner from Bucky, he’s now nearly in his lap. Bucky chalks it up to Steve hamming it up a bit for his Ma, nothing else. He’s wearing a ridiculously fuzzy sweater that Bucky wants to bury his face in, high-waisted jeans that drive Bucky crazy, and Bucky’s Christmas gift, a Saint Luke medallion around his neck. He has the softest smile on his lips, and Bucky wants to scream his love from the rooftops.

His heart is so full he’s stupid with it.

And that is the reason—the _only _reason that he forgets all about Sam and Peggy’s warnings. Or maybe not forgets; more that the hour he’s spent with Sarah has given him the ability to tune the worst of his worries out, so much so that neither he nor Steve suspect foul play when Sarah exclaims, “Damn, I forgot the cake. I’ll just go down to the—”

“I can do that, Ma,” Steve volunteers, a long-ingrained habit. “Won’t take a second.”

“Oh, would you?” She turns to Bucky. “I figured I’d spare you any home-baking, I’m not much of a baker, I’m afraid.”

“Your cooking more than makes up for it,” Bucky is quick to say.

Sarah pads his cheek, beaming at him.

While Steve runs down to the shop, Bucky helps Sarah clear the table, washing off the dishes despite her vocal protests. It’s no trouble, he swears up and down, not even for his metal arm—it’s both waterproof and easy to clean.

Perhaps because she already knows how he lost his arm, Sarah hasn’t mentioned it until now. She’d glanced at it when Bucky put it around Steve, but not like she was afraid he could hurt her son, more like she was remembering that oh, yes, he had a prosthetic.

But here in the kitchen with just the two of them, he feels her eyes on his back. Meeting them, he sees for the first time the penetrating intensity he’d been warned about. He has a sinking feeling that this isn’t even the full force of it.

She’s quiet for a moment, head cocked. “You know, when Sam told me about you, I wasn’t sure what to think. I’ve always done my best to raise Steve to be honest, even when things got tough. He’s had his secrets, of course he has, and I’ve had mine, but that’s only healthy. But this… I was a surprised he wouldn’t tell me, so I have to admit I had my doubts about you.”

“Oh,” Bucky breathes, fidgeting.

“I just didn’t understand. I’ve never felt or spoken even an ounce of hate against queer people—is it okay for me to call you that? Alright—so why wouldn’t he tell me? That’s when the worry really set in, but now that I’ve met you, I’m almost more confused.”

Bucky shuffles his feet. “I… okay?”

“You are by all accounts a nice young man. You’ve got manners, you’re kind, and you look at my son like he’s the most precious thing in the world. There is not a single thing that would make me disapprove of you, so again: _why the secrecy_?” Bucky’s blushing furiously (is he that obvious? This is _not_ good, what if Steve notices), but Sarah just bulldozes on. “Sam sings your praises. Well, he complains that Steve is all stupid over you, which is the same thing, really. So, I just can’t get my head around it.”

“I, we—we just wanted to take it slow, I guess.” _Steve is stupid over me? _

Sarah stares him down like she knows just how much of that is bullshit. Where the hell is Steve when you need him? Bucky hasn’t been this intimidated since… he’s _never _been this intimidated, holy fuck, send help.

“Whatever the reason,” Sarah says, stepping closer to grip his arm, just a soft, motherly squeeze. “As long as you’re both safe, and happy, I’m not going to make you tell me. Just… promise me you haven’t eloped or something?”

“_What?_”

“Oh, don’t give me that, you’re both starry-eyed enough to attempt it.”

“I _promise _we’re not going to elope.” Mostly because Steve’s just faking it. (Also, Winifred would feel absolutely no remorse over murdering Bucky if he eloped. To be quite honest, though, if Steve suggested it, Bucky would do it in a heartbeat and claim that it made better sense for their… tax benefits or whatever. He’d come up with a better lie if he had to).

Sarah hums and releases him. She doesn’t entirely sound like she believes him, and the rest of the night, she watches them with a slight smirk. Steve—having finally reemerged from whatever battle he had to go through for the cake—gives his mother the hairy eyeball, glancing between her and Bucky, but Bucky is _not _getting into that, it was bad enough going through it the first time.

At eight, Sarah starts gathering up her things for her nightshift at the hospital.

Bucky is sleeping over—Steve had _insisted_, and Bucky is weak—and the whole thing feels a bit like being a kid again and left home alone for the first time. He stands off to the side as the Rogerses say goodbye, melting a little when Sarah hugs him, too.

“Steve,” she says right before she leaves. “Remember: cupboard under the bathroom sink, in the green basket. Bucky, you remember this, too.”

“_Ma!_”

Sarah cackles on her way out.

“What was that all about?” Bucky asks, squinting at a red-faced Steve.

“Nothing,” Steve lies, frantic. “Let’s watch a movie, come on.”

When Bucky goes to the bathroom later, he peeks in the cupboard and nearly combusts into flames right then and there. There are a couple of boxes of unopened condoms of various kinds, some with blueberry flavoring even, and a tube of lube that reads ANAL in giant letters across the top. He can only assume that Steve wouldn’t so blatantly announce his sex life to his Ma, so that means that Sarah went and bought this for them, and honestly, that’s almost worse.

When he returns to the living room, Steve takes one look at him and buries his face in his hands. “You saw, didn’t you.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Did you see the pamphlets, too?”

“… there were pamphlets?”

“What, you didn’t notice the comic-sans monstrosity spelling out _But(t) First_?”

Bucky turns on his heels and runs back to the bathroom. He will hold this over Steve’s head for _years_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read on, my dears!


	23. 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they're home alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second half of the double update!
> 
> this chapter is NSFW.

They’re curled up in bed together and not like they’re going to go to sleep.

The lights are out, and they’re ready for bed, sure, but Bucky knows that that’s not going to happen just yet. Today has… it has blurred some lines, and it isn’t until now that Bucky really understands just how much. They’ve been alone for hours and barely done more than hold hands; it has only highlighted how much Bucky has missed Steve’s hands on him, how often they’ve ended up kissing and touching when no one else was looking.

And here they are, in Steve’s bedroom at his Ma’s house. No one to pretend for, and the echoes of their last serious conversation a ghost in the room. The end of the line… it should be in sight, shouldn’t it?

But Steve is half-lying on him, drawing patterns on Bucky’s chest. It’s not how he likes to sleep; snuggling is the best, it’s amazing, and waking up in each other’s arms? _Out-fucking-standing. _But when they’re going to sleep, they like a bit of space, just enough to wriggle around without bothering the other too much. But he hasn’t moved in an age, and knowing him like Bucky does now… it’s an invitation. A _blatant_ invitation, even.

There’ll be no lines drawn tonight.

It makes Bucky want to squirm. They’re both just in their sleep shirts and boxer-briefs, “it’ll get warm, yeah? We don’t need pajamas.” His own hand is petting the feathery hairs on Steve’s arm, the other curled around his hip and holding him close.

It’d be easy to reach out. To pull Steve’s face up and kiss him for the first time in nearly a week. Bucky’s _aching_ for it, shivering from anticipation, but he likes this, too, the waiting game. Pressed close, he can feel Steve chubbing up against his side, hear how his breath stutters when Bucky scratches just a tiny bit harder, squeezes him just a little tighter.

He’s driving Steve crazy, and he’s drowning in it.

He wants Steve to feel like he does, crazy with want.

“You were amazing today,” Steve tells him, voice a soft rumble.

“Anything for my boyfriend,” Bucky says, a slip of the tongue really.

(He doesn’t know it, but that is what sets the course for the rest of their lives, that one too-honest slip. He hasn’t even noticed it himself, but Steve’s whole world gets redefined from the moment Bucky Barnes calls him his boyfriend and doesn’t haste to add ‘fake’ in front of it).

“Are you warm?” he asks.

Bucky heart beats faster. “A bit.”

Steve nods against him and after a moment squirms away. “Me, too.”

It’s dark, and Bucky can barely make Steve out, but against the pale light sneaking around the blinds he sees—and feels—Steve sit up and pull his shirt off, a little too slowly for it to be anything other than a performance. Bucky follows suit; when they come together, they both shiver.

They’re still not kissing, still drawing it out.

Steve’s got his hand on Bucky’s belly, just above his bellybutton and the trail of hair leading down. He’s got a thing for Bucky’s body hair, Steve does. He’s got almost none himself, and what he has is sparse in almost every place except his groin. There, it grows thicker and golden, not quite as wiry as Bucky’s own. Bucky wants to pet him, wants to feel him everywhere.

He can’t stop himself anymore.

Turning onto his side, he pulls Steve’s leg higher on his hip, but doesn’t press their bodies closer just yet. Steve’s breaths are already coming faster, his pulse jumping against his skin as Bucky runs his hand up his thigh, skimming his thumb over the sensitive skin close to where Steve wants him the most.

When he reaches his ass, he finally pulls him in, grinds against him just once. His breath stutters over Steve’s lips, so close now. Steve’s hands are on his chest, carding through the hair there, nails digging in. “What do you want, Stevie?”

“You _know_,” Steve says, almost whining.

“Tell me, baby?”

“Kiss me. God, Buck, don’t make me beg—”

One day, Bucky is going to take Steve apart piece by piece until he can’t even beg, voice weak and hoarse and so, so fucked-out he’ll sound like he’s gurgled gravel for days. But for now, he’s all out of patience, and he surges closer, their noses bumping awkwardly as they try to find each other in the dark.

He kisses Steve blindly, barely in control of himself. Steve pulls him closer, wriggles against him like he’s trying to burrow into Bucky’s skin. He tastes of mint from his toothpaste, and a little like lip balm, too. Bucky sucks his tongue and echoes his moans.

They’ve thrown off the blankets and are rolling around, mindless to get closer.

Bucky touches every inch of Steve’s skin, from the delicate bend of his wrist to the scar on his chest, his ticklish sides and perky ass. He never wants to part from him, wants to live inside his heart and know his touch always.

They roll, and Steve is on top, hips twitching against Bucky’s, grinding their cocks together. They don’t have to be quiet, so they aren’t. Endearments drip from Bucky’s lips, a river of vocalized caresses that make Steve kiss him harder, touch him longer, set him on fire.

He kisses his way down Steve’s throat, sucks the beauty marks he knows to be there. Steve offers his body so easily, stretches into Bucky’s grasp like a flower towards the sun; Bucky’s never felt more wanted, forgets himself entirely. All he knows is Steve, Steve’s pleasure, the heavy desire in his gut and his cock and his lips.

Eager, he palms Steve through his underwear—

And Steve rolls off him.

“Sorry, I’ll stop, please—”

Steve hushes him, shimmying. Cloth hits the floor, and then Steve’s hands are on his hips, curling into the band of Bucky’s boxer-briefs. 

Steve is naked. Steve wants him to be naked with him.

Thank God for the dark, because getting there is _not _graceful.

They’re both a little nervous now, but no less eager. Steve’s hands shake when he pulls Bucky closer, pulls him on top of him, between his thighs. Bucky can barely breathe, skin-hungry and dry-mouthed and so unbelievably turned on.

He holds himself up, much to Steve’s consternation, if his wriggling is anything to go by, but damn it, Bucky’s so close a light breeze could set him off. Every brush of skin is magnified, even just the tips of their noses brushing. Lowering himself carefully and oh-so-slowly, he covers Steve.

A moan punches out of him.

Steve is a live-wire, frantic hands pulling Bucky closer, his shoulders, his back, his ass. His legs are spread obscenely, cradling Bucky perfectly, and his cock jerks against him. He’s whispering nonsensical words, prayers and pleas that make all sense leak from Bucky’s brain, calls him _sweetheart._

Bucky would be fine with this being it. He’s got everything he could want; Steve naked and willing under him, Bucky’s name on his tongue, his eyes on Bucky’s face. They’re thrusting messily against one another, too out of it for proper coordination.

But then Steve takes Bucky’s hand and guides him between his legs.

“You want me to—?”

“_Yes_.”

“Do you have—?”

Steve worms his way to the edge of the bed, fumbling underneath is for a while and emerging with a small tube. The cap is tight, and he ends up fumbling it open and spilling a bit of lube on Steve’s belly, the cool shock of it making him _meep, _and then Bucky is snorting, and they’re laughing.

“Maybe we should have light?”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees quickly. “I wanna see you.”

And what a sight he is. Steve is covered in odd patches of blush, across his chest and all along his throat. He’s on his back, chest heaving, legs curled up around Bucky’s, and the spilled lube has made a snail-trail down his side.

Between his legs, his cock curves proudly upward, precum at the tip. Bucky’s mouth waters.

They’d gotten tested, the both of them—it wasn’t planned, but Bucky had maybe mentioned it a bit too unsubtly when his clean bill of health came through, and Steve wasn’t far behind. Just in case. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

And tonight… _tonight_.

Bucky gets his fingers covered and trails them over Steve’s cock, over his balls and down to his entrance. To calm him, he presses kisses all over his chest and belly, teases him with gentle caresses that only really succeed to make Steve buck his hips impatiently.

He freezes up a bit when Bucky finally breaches him, slips just the tip of his finger inside.

“You okay?”

“_Yeah_, yes. I’m fine, keep going.”

They take it slow, despite the want thrumming through both of them. Steve takes one finger and begs for more with his body, curving into Bucky’s hands and pulling at his hair. Another makes him tense, makes him mutter, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I can take it.” To distract him, Bucky darts a kiss to the tip of his cocks, tastes the precum weeping freely.

“Buck, don’t—I won’t last.”

“It’s okay, Stevie, I want you to come,” he whispers back.

And he does, once Bucky has got three fingers in him and a hand around his cock. Steve throws his head back, stomach tensing, a shuddery moan rising from his chest. There’s never been a prettier sight than Steve Rogers spilling all over his belly and Bucky’s hands. Bucky works him through it, pumping his fingers faster, trying to keep up with Steve’s stuttering rhythm.

Steve comes down with a sigh, still trembling. His pupils are blown black, he’s sweaty and flushed, and so damn beautiful, Bucky just has to kiss him stupid. He’s feeling more than a little stupid himself, wrecked and aching and so close, and Steve kisses him back lazily, not quite back with the world just yet.

Should he get a condom? Would Steve let him—would Steve _want _him to fuck him, to slip inside and lose himself? Or is he too sensitive? He shivers when Bucky pulls his fingers out, tries to close his legs. Or maybe he just plain doesn’t want to? That’s okay too, Bucky doesn’t need much, would make do with his own hand if Steve told him to.

“Have you…?” Steve slurs, trying to glance down.

“Not yet.”

“What do you want?”

“Just want you, Stevie,” he says, too honest.

It really doesn’t take much. Steve flinches at almost every touch, over-sensitive with it all, so Bucky convinces him that he’ll be find with just his hand. Steve’s stubborn though, and gets a condom on Bucky anyway, rolling onto his side and pulling Bucky close.

“Like this,” he says, shivering.

Bucky doesn’t push in, no matter how much his brain is telling him to. Steve wouldn’t enjoy it, even if he’s willing to try and out-stubborn his body. Instead, Bucky gentles him with scattered kisses and firm touches, slicks up his cock and slides it between Steve’s thighs and thrusts. Steve tilts his hips back, almost irresistible.

“We’ve got time, Stevie,” Bucky promises him between pants. Anything to get him to stop making Bucky crazy, he’s really only got a shred of common sense left, and Steve is determined to banish it; he has to hold on.

“But I want you _now_,” Steve whines, wriggling to get Bucky inside him.

As luck would have it, that’s all it takes. Bucky jerks against Steve’s rim, groaning into his sweaty hair as the world whites out, explodes behind his eyelids. When his hips finally stop stuttering and his breaths come easier, Steve is there to pull him in, to kiss him sweetly through euphoric laughter, and Bucky tastes his joy.

“Wow,” he breathes, tumbling onto his back.

Bucky can only nod and watch him, lost.

He has to tell him. Soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll probably take a bit of a break now, i've got some things i need to get ready in time for christmas, i'll try to update before the holidays hit tho!


	24. 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Steve meets the Barneses, and Bucky comes to a realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!! my pressing concerns have been removed, so i had time to write this.  
i hope u don't have to suffer too much... but if u suffer a little bit, well. that will be my christmas present.

“Okay,” Steve says, exhaling slowly. “I’m ready.”

He marches up to the front door, exquisitely wrapped gift under one arm, and knocks twice, then stands back and waits as if for a firing squad to come running at him. Bucky can’t make too much fun of him; he’d probably looked just as terrified yesterday (though he hadn’t had a hickey high on his neck, and yep, they are absolutely going to die. It had been bad enough when Sarah had spotted it. Bucky had felt her raised eyebrow. _Felt_ it).

“You can still run,” he tells Steve, daydreaming of doing just that, just grabbing Steve by the hand and fleeing to… Paris or something, they’ve got museum, don’t they? Steve would like it there.

Before Steve can answer, a frazzled guy opens the door, blinking out at them slowly. He’s tall and chubby, has thick, brown hair and freckles, and going by the fact that he looks like he’s come through a hurricane (and isn’t related to Bucky), he can only be Becca’s boyfriend.

“They got to you, huh?” Bucky commiserates, pressing the guy’s hand and introducing himself and Steve.

“Oh, no, no!” the guy hurries to say, desperate not to insult anyone. “They’re perfectly lovely and… and talkative.” Nicely put; Bucky likes him already. This fella’s gonna do just fine.

“Don’t worry, we’re here to take the focus off you for a little while.”

“Oh, thank _God_. I mean—sorry, I’m in your way. I’m Daniel.”

Bucky, because he’s a nice guy, lets Steve and Daniel trail after him, taking the initial brunt of the excitable ruckus that hits them as soon as they step into the living room. It’s not the full Barnes-clan today, thank God and all his angels, but the ones that _are _in residence are making enough noise to make up for it.

Bucky’s sisters—all of whom he should’ve pushed into the East River when he’d had the fucking chance—come slinking up to them, their devious smiles full of teeth even as they fawn over Steve, all “Bucky wouldn’t tell us _anything_,” “oh my God, I _love _your tattoos,” and “wow, you have grown way too handsome for him,” (fuck you, Becca). Winifred wins Mother of the Year award by pushing them all out of the way and loses it just as quickly by trying to smother Steve in love; Grandma is right on her heels, foisting a Barnes sweater on him and clucking over his slim shoulders.

As the only sane family member, George at least lets Steve catch his breath before inviting him to sit, seemingly happy to just be in the same room and not bother him too much. He’s also the only one to greet Bucky beyond “oh, it’s you” (thanks, Rachel).

They should’ve run while they had the chance.

They’d been having such a lovely morning, too. Bucky had woken up with Steve sprawled across his back, morning wood digging into his butt-cheek and drool on his shoulder while Steve snored like a baby bear. Beyond their room, Sarah had been puttering quietly around the kitchen, blissfully unaware of their night of debauchery (well, Bucky _would like _to think so, but Sarah probably knew exactly what they’d gotten up to). 

After prodding Steve awake and convincing him that no, they absolutely wouldn’t go for round two with his Ma just down the hall (it didn’t work, damn him and his clever hands; guess who had to sneak-sprint to the bathroom for a wet cloth while Sarah had her back turned), they’d gotten dressed and sat down for breakfast. Steve had been glowing and wearing Bucky’s shirt.

Really, Bucky should get a medal for making it through the day without ravishing him.

Now, in Bucky’s childhood home, Steve looks radiant despite the onslaught of Bucky’s family, wearing a deep blue turtleneck and a pair of worn jeans with rips at the knee that are sure to have him freezing (“it’s fashion, Buck, it’s not meant to be practical! _Ma, stop encouraging him!_”) He’s desperately trying to pay attention to everyone, but it’s difficult, because absolutely _everyone _is talking over everyone else, and poor Steve’s head snaps back and forth to follow the conversation and answer questions.

It only gets worse when Winifred unwraps their present; it’s a large, beautiful family portrait that looks like something out of a museum, intricately detailed despite the short time-frame and Facebook profile picture Steve had had to rely on for reference. A few details are incorrect, like the slope of Becca’s nose and the shape of George’s ears, but they’re so minor that no one will notice unless they’re standing right next to the painting and pointing it out.

“This is going on the wall!” Winifred declares at once, racing off to find a hammer and nails and calling out instructions for her family to clear the area above the mantlepiece. They all hop to it, even Steve and Daniel; Winifred just has that kind of power. She’d have made an excellent drill sergeant in another life. 

They make it through the day without any incidents.

Becca is remembering more and more from their brief time together in school, and she wields it mercilessly, especially as memories of Bucky’s childhood infatuation starts coming back to her, too. She hasn’t said anything too damning yet. _Yet. _It’s only a matter of time, and Bucky’s frantic gesticulating only makes her grin wider. Sisters are a plague on this world and should be left on the porch for the faeries to abduct.

Steve fits in near seamlessly. He’s overwhelmed—of course he is, Bucky can’t blame him—but George is great at picking up on it and allowing him refuge in the kitchen for a few minutes when he needs it. Still, he handles it like a champ, sasses Bucky’s sisters like he’s known them all his life, indulges Winifred’s over-enthusiastic fawning and Grandma’s despair at the world in general, and gets along with the quieter George like a house on fire. All the while, he sits next to Bucky, either holding his hand or tracing doodles on his knee.

When their eyes meet, Steve smiles like there’s nowhere in the world he’d rather be.

He fits with every part of Bucky’s life, doesn’t he? It’s not that they haven’t had to work for it, because they have; none of this would’ve been possible if he and Steve hadn’t come together and worked their asses off to make everybody believe their lie. They’ve had a lot to learn about each other, a few missteps, too. It just hasn’t… it hasn’t felt like uprooting a part of himself to make room for someone else, not at all. It has felt like a homecoming, a _this is how my life is supposed to be. _

Steve fits with the Howlies, throwing elbows and jabs, and Bucky enjoys hanging out with Steve’s friends just as much; he fits in the stands during Bucky’s games, just as Bucky does at his side during art showings. He slots into Bucky’s life like he’s only been waiting for the chance to do so, and Bucky… Bucky feels at home with him. The world comes alive when filtered through Steve’s eyes, and in turn he makes Steve light up. Bucky wants to bandage his wounds and make him laugh and kiss him until the end of time, and when he fucks up, as he knows he will, he wants to make it up to him and savor his forgiveness like the sweetest blessing. 

He can see it now, the rest of their lives laid out in his mind: the tiny little apartment they’ll move into somewhere in Brooklyn (he hopes it won’t be too shitty, but unless either he or Steve make it to the big leagues right after graduation, it’s probably going to be the kind of place where the hot water only works for half an hour each day, or there’s going to be a mysterious, unidentified draft in winter, or the smell of marijuana will seep in from God knows where); the first job Bucky will work, which is going to pay just enough to keep them above water while Steve establishes himself in the art scene; how they’ll fill their home with odds and ends and make it _theirs_; the meals they’ll share, the love-making, the contentment; their first pet; their first _child_.

_You make him stupid_, Sarah had said. _You’re _both _starry-eyed. _

_I just want you, Stevie._

_Who the fuck wouldn’t love you back?_

He loves Steve. Loves him so, so much, and he’s been a liar for far too long.

“Steve, I need to talk to you,” Bucky urgently whispers, dragging him out of the room and leaving Bucky’s gaping family behind.


	25. 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they finally, FINALLY, talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so i maybe sorta promised a double update today, but i changed the final chapter and the epilogue more than a little bit and I want my beta to look 'em over before posting. just tryna round it all of proper, you know? you'll get the chapters... tomorrow, i think? maybe later (much later) today? I dunno, don't ask me questions, just assume i know nothing.

Bucky deposits Steve on the edge of his bed and spends the next five minutes pacing in front of him and likely freaking him the hell out. The words just won’t come; what exactly can he say?_ Sorry, Stevie, I’ve been lying to you since the beginning, but I’m so in love with you I can’t think? _Yeah, that’ll go over well, especially if Steve doesn’t feel the same, _as he had basically told Bucky _after they’d had sex the first time, or at least that’s how Bucky had understood it, but Sarah had said that Sam had said and—Jesus, he needs to lie down.

“Buck—?”

Bucky holds up his hand. “I’m really sorry, but I need you to not say anything right now. Fuck, this is gonna suck, I’m so sorry, Steve—”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

That stops Bucky in his tracks. “_What?_”

Steve isn’t looking at him, is staring down at his white-knuckled hands, and his voice is raw. “Fake-breaking up, or whatever, but… please, Buck, I—I’ll be better, I won’t be as handsy, I know this is a lot and it’s not what we agreed on, and you were so amazing yesterday, I just thought—”

“Hey, hey, Stevie, no, sweetheart, look at me,” Bucky says, kneeling down. He cups Steve’s face, tilts it up. Steve has tears in his eyes, blinking furiously to erase them. Each and every one of them is a lance through Bucky, a mark of failure. He made Stevie cry; it’s akin to stepping on your cat’s tiny, little paw and hearing it yowl. “Baby, don’t cry, it’s okay.”

“It’s _not,_” Steve breathes, “because _you’re _not okay.”

“It’s not your fault, I promise, it’s me, it’s all my fault, fuck, Steve, I’m a mess. I’ve been a liar, and you’re gonna hate me—”

Steve grabs him, eyes blazing. “I could never hate you, Buck. Not ever. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it, just tell me.”

Bucky crumbles, touching his forehead to Steve’s gently. He doesn’t deserve him, this ray of literal sunshine, this shooting star. How did he ever let Bucky hold him, how did Bucky ever convince himself that his actions wouldn’t hurt Steve? _Selfish_. God, how could he ever think that he was the only one hurting, that just because Steve didn’t feel the same, he wouldn’t care if Bucky was left broken in the end? That’s not Steve, and Bucky’s known it all along, and there are no excuses left. He did this. He knew better.

He opens his mouth, closes it against. He chokes and swallows it down, tries not to combust in the face of Steve’s anxiousness, his splotchy pallor, and trembling resolve. The best thing that ever happened to Bucky, and he brought him to this? He runs his thumbs carefully under Steve’s eyes, catches a few escaped tears.

“Steve, I…” he starts. “I… fuck, I don’t know how to—how to say this. I’ve fucked it all up, I’m so sorry. I just… there you were, and I was helpless, and then you kissed me and—_Steve_. Steve, I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

Steve’s nodding, face twisted in sorrow. “It’s okay, Buck, I understand—”

“_No_, no, you don’t, I know you, I can see you spiraling into the worst possible scenario, but Stevie, I’m not trying to end this, I’m trying to—I wanna be your boyfriend, I don’t wanna pretend. Please, Stevie—I just wanna be yours. Could you… could you ever see me like that?”

Steve’s eyes shoot open, his grip on Bucky’s arms grows nearly painful. He searches Bucky’s face frantically, disbelief painted across every feature. He’s quiet for so long, just gaping, that Bucky starts to see his world crumble into dust even as logic chants _you’ll rise from this, too, _but it doesn’t matter, because Steve never wanted him and— “But you’re in love with that guy, I-I can’t compete with that, Buck, I’m sorry, I couldn’t bear it if… if he suddenly noticed you back.”

“It was all a lie.”

“I… what? No, no, you told me about him, you couldn’t—you’re not that good of an actor, I heard the love in every word you said.”

“Stevie, he was never real,” Bucky says, pleads. “Or, well. He was. But it was never some guy, it was… it was always you.”

Steve shakes his head, confused. “I don’t understand.”

So Bucky confesses. How he’d known Steve from the very first. How he’d had this fantasy of him in his head for nearly a decade, and how it was nothing compared to the real thing. How he’d never really gotten over his first love, it had only been dormant in the back of his mind. How every kiss, every touch, everything he’d ever given Steve… he’d meant it all. He lays himself bare, hands Steve the keys to his soul and surrenders himself gladly.

“I’m… I’m the guy?”

“Yes, sweetheart. There was never anyone else.”

“You made ‘him’ up to keep from telling me?” Bucky nods. He can’t get a read on Steve, not beyond shock. “All this time? All this time you’ve been hurtin’ and not said a word? God, Buck, I’ve hurt you so much—”

“Steve, no—”

“I _have_. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s my fault.”

“Would you stop it! _Stop it_!” Steve cries, shaking him. “We’ve wasted so much time. I—are you still… are you in love with me?”

He has his hand on Bucky’s cheek, cradling him so softly. Bucky is wrecked, fragile inside out, but he finds the strength to say: “I’ve been in love with you since I was a kid. And now that I know you, I’ve only come to love you more. I love you, Stevie. Will you give me a chance to make it right? I’ll do whatever—”

Steve curls in on himself, wheezing. Bucky flutters uselessly about, desperate to do something, _anything, _but he’s making it worse with his very presence at this point. Who the _fuck _confesses life-long love in the middle of another, bigger shitstorm, holy shit, who raised him? He offers Steve water, to get him his inhaler, to leave him alone, probably stressing him out a hell of a lot more, so he says it’s fine, he won’t bother Steve anymore—

Steve kisses him, nearly knocking him out with the strength of it. He kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, pecks and nips and long, intense presses, devouring. When they pull apart, Bucky’s hair has come undone from Steve’s hands, and Steve is fever-flushed. Their lips are spit-slick and swollen and they’re breathing unsteadily, panting, really.

“I love you, too,” Steve says, hoarse but gaining strength. “God, I was always with you, Buck. From the first. I just never thought you’d want me in truth.”

Bucky’s not crying. It’s just allergies. “All I ever wanted was you. Are we gonna be okay?”

“I—fuck. It’s a lot to take in, and I’m so fuckin’ mad at the both of us, but I’m also… I wanna try, Buck, God, that’s all I want. I’m freaking the fuck out, man, Jesus _fuck_.”

He throws himself into Bucky’s arms, and Bucky’s there to catch him. They’re both shaking, coming down from the adrenaline rush, giddy and scared and so, so happy. Steve snickers wetly into Bucky’s neck, burying his nose in his skin and clutching him tightly. It makes Bucky laugh, too, nervous and manic, and he whispers words of love into Steve’s golden hair, soaks up his touch.

There’s never gonna be an end of the line.

They might have a proper meltdown later, when everything has settled and they realize just how much they’ve both been lying, how much they’ve managed to draw out their little charade and hurt each other more than they ever wanted to. But for now, there’s only this; Steve in Bucky’s arms, his heart on his sleeve.

There’s a gentle knock on the door.

“Yeah?” Bucky calls, unable to look away from Steve. _His_ Steve.

“Are you done sucking face?” Ruth calls.

Winifred, because she’s got the ears of a bat and the finely-tuned bullshit radar of a mother of four, bellows, “_Ruth Elizabeth Barnes, you leave those boys alone_!” and sends Ruth scurrying back down the stairs, cackling.

Bucky hugs Steve tighter. “I don’t wanna leave this room. Just wanna stay here with you.”

“But we gotta,” Steve tells him, planting kisses all over his neck. He’s dazed enough to be on his best behavior for now, but Bucky’s under no illusion that this conversation is in any way over. It’s gonna get rough, but that’s okay. They’ll get through it. “I don’t wanna be rude, so get up, Barnes. You gonna let your boyfriend face your family alone?”

Bucky sighs theatrically. “_Fine_. But only because you’re my boyfriend. If you were, say, my fake-boyfriend… you’d be shit outta luck.”

“You’re a goddamned liar.”

“Yeah. But I’m yours?”

“You are, Buck. And I’m yours.”

“I love you.” A beat. “You gonna tell me you love me, too, or what?”

“As you wish.”

“_Steve!_”


	26. 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our boys get started on their new beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double update! this is part 1 og 2!

**Me**: _so first of all, I told Steve I loved him_

**Dum Dum**: _holy fuck it worked _

**Me**: _second of all_

**Me**: _wait what _

**Dum Dum**: _um_

**Morita**: _nice, Dum Dum_

**Me**: _WHAT worked_

**Gabe**: _That’s a funny story, actually._

**Dernier**: _that monty will be most pleased to tell_

**Monty**: _FUCK YOU ALL _

**Me**: _WELL?_

**Monty**: _Uhhhhh_

**Monty**: _Actually_

**Monty**: _Carter would tell it much better_

**Peggy has been added to the group chat.**

**Peggy**: _Read, 07:23pm_

**Peggy has left the group chat.**

**Monty**: _CARTER YOU TRAITOR _

**Morita**: _SAVAGE_

**Gabe**: _She’s onto something though._

**Gabe**: _BYE _

**Gabe has left the group chat.**

**Dernier**: _:ooo_

**Dernier has left the group chat.**

**Morita has left the group chat.**

**Me**: _SOMEBODY BETTER TELL ME WHATS GOING ON RIGHT FUCKING NOW_

**Monty**: _Okay but_

**Sam has been added to the group chat.**

**Monty**: _ALL MEN FOR THEMSELVES_

**Monty has left the group chat.**

**Sam**: _lol NOPE _

**Sam has left the group chat.**

**Dum Dum**: _GUYS????_

**Me**: _TIMOTHY_

**Me**: _ALOYSIUS_

**Me**: _CADWALLADER_

**Me**: _DUGAN_

**Me**: _I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP_

**Dum Dum**: _okay but you have to PROMISE not to get mad_

**Dum Dum**: _and also remember that Irina will avenge my death so really you cant kill me_

All their motherfucking friends had fucking _known. _

Well. Not _known-_known. They hadn’t been quite sure _what _was going on, but they’d known that something wasn’t right. It all comes down to Bucky’s _don’t-be-weird_ text to the Howlies from that first day. It was supposed to help preserve his dignity in front of Steve and keep his infatuation from spilling all over the place. Maybe it would have worked… if Steve hadn’t had the same idea at the exact same time. And Steve’s text had been a bit… bleaker.

Peggy and Monty had both received theirs while in the middle of a conversation.

One read: _steve and i are a thing, don’t make a big scene, i haven’t told him everything yet and i don’t wanna scare him off so BE NICE OR I SWEAR TO GOD. _The other:_ He’s getting over someone else, don’t make it weird. I know what I’m doing. _Now, don’t blame Monty and Peggy too much; they hadn’t revealed the differing texts to each other right away. But whereas Peggy and the rest of Steve’s friends had all eyed Bucky warily, Monty and the Howlies had embarked on being extra supportive.

A few weeks in, they’d smelled blood in the water.

On one hand, there was Bucky: holding himself back from a relationship he had been invested in from the very beginning. On the other, Steve: diving headfirst into being a rebound with a vigor that didn’t make sense. Their friends, being the ride-or-die type of people they were, came together.

Seeing the differing texts next to each other made them even more confused.

Why were Bucky and Steve lying? Not just to their friends, but to each other? The theories had run wild, and in the end, there’d only been one thing to do: actively pushing scenarios that would bring Steve and Bucky closer and hopefully give them a chance to come clean.

Overall, it’s been perfectly innocent suggestions. Inviting Steve and his friends to frat parties, suggesting fancier dates, joking about their cuteness, asking where the other were, all those perfectly innocuous things that could be chalked up to being happy for the ‘couple’. But Christmas… while it _had_ been an innocent slip on Sam’s part, the same could not be said for Dum Dum. That shit was premeditated. He’d known full well that prolonged exposure of this sort would break Bucky’s barriers, and he’d known just how to make it happen. (Being from a large sibling group himself, he was intimately acquainted with the manifestations of sibling-love, especially that which is a burning desire to annoy someone to death).

“Those fuckers,” Bucky grumbles to Steve, who’s forcing an explanation from his friends as well.

“I wanna be mad,” Steve agrees. “But.”

“Yeah. But.”

They don’t have a lot of moral high ground here—if _any_. If anyone should be mad, it should be their friends whom they’ve been jerking around for months, even if their friends hadn’t been their primary targets of their deceit (fuck Rumlow). There’s a lot of apologizing in their immediate future, but they’ll be forgiven. “You’re too stupid and cute to murder and bury in the backyard, and I just got my nails done” the verdict will be.

They also have to come clean to their families.

Thank God, everyone’s a sucker for a love story.

*

Because real life doesn’t align as perfectly as it does in the movies, Bucky and Steve officially start anew two days before New Year’s Eve. They’ve come clean, made their apologies, and have talked it out over many (_many_) sessions, just the two of them, getting the hurt and frustration out of the way. Even while it feels like splitting himself wide open, it also feels freeing. There are no secrets now, no bleeding wounds. Bucky can breathe again.

Well, he can breathe when Steve doesn’t announce himself by launching his entire, skinny body at Bucky like a heat-seeking missile and knocking the wind right out of him. Grumbling and barely awake, he pushes weakly at his boyfriend, ignoring the snickers and pointy elbows stabbing at him to get up. “Come on, Buck, there are _waffles_.”

“_No_. Sleepy.”

“Buckyyyyyyy.”

“Noooooooo.”

Steve harrumphs, but burrows into the minimal space under Bucky’s arm, making himself right at home. Because he is _the devil himself, _he teases little kisses across Bucky’s face that makes Bucky actually want to wake up, before breathing his horrible morning breath right in Bucky’s face and laughing uproariously when Bucky gasps in affront.

“My Ma’s coming, you really gonna let her face your family alone?” Steve tries, giggling as Bucky wrestles him into submission.

“Sarah is Joan of Arc reincarnated, she can handle the goblin children. _Lie still_, dammit.”

“Sure she can, but… she’s also meeting your Ma unsupervised.”

Bucky rolls out of bed. “_Jesus._”

The last week with their families has been… honestly, Bucky thought it would be worse. Winifred and Sarah both know how to wield Irish-Catholic guilt like a broadsword, George has this thing about making really sad faces that prompt his children into doing housework of their own will just to make him stop, and the sister-trio had nearly gone into conniptions of glee, foreseeing a lot of ammunition. Grandma had just thought it was hilarious.

But Winifred had taken it surprisingly well. “I’d call you both fools, James Buchanan, but that boyfriend of yours is my new favorite child.”

“_Ma_.”

“Don’t ‘Ma’ me, have you seen the painting he did? I’ll disown all of you before him.”

Mostly, she forgives them because she sees how happy they are with each other.

Sarah… well. Bucky should’ve seen it coming. Steve probably _did _see it coming but was too busy being self-flagellating to warn him properly. At first, she’d seemed to take it well: just rolled her eyes and stood around with her hands on her hips a lot, shooting them exasperated looks whenever they were in her line of sight.

And then, when they were at hers and Steve’s favorite bakery, she’d pulled a garish pamphlet from her bag and laid it carefully in front of them. Across the front (in fucking _papyrus _font_, _Jesus) it read: _Anal much_? (And across the back: _O’R<strike>E</strike>ALLY?_). It had illustrations—_bad _illustrations, some of which appeared to have been plucked straight from a smutty manga. She had definitely put it together herself.

“Now, boys, because I know you have trouble communicating,” she’d said, devious little shark eyes trained on her horrified audience. “I thought you might want a refresher on why it’s important to be honest about sex. Do we need a refresher on consent, too?”

So, _no_, Bucky can’t let her meet Winifred without his direct supervision.

It goes off without a hitch though—mostly because the two of them spend every moment despairing at their idiot sons and dramatically bemoaning their troubles. Sarah is a spitfire, but you never see her coming. Steve’s a lot like her, from his looks to his soul. It’s why Bucky can’t help but adore her, too, and why they both fit right in which the Barneses.

And this… this is his family: Steve and George in deep conversation about… motorbikes? Bucky’s brain is going to leak straight through his ears; Ruth and Rachel making drinks-flowcharts for New Year’s; Becca and Daniel curled on the couch, shyly holding hands; and Winifred and Sarah plotting who-knows-what (but possibly something embarrassing). In Bucky’s pocket, there’s a tiny little doodle of him, asleep and fuzzy with Steve curled up on his back like a kitten. Steve had made just this morning, in the minutes before waking Bucky. Bucky has a book full of doodles (in a year’s time, he’ll have a whole binder).

Steve turns to him almost before Bucky even knows he’s moving, anticipating Bucky’s arms around his waist and his nose against his neck. He’s allowed to do this now; he was before, too, but now it’s _real_.

It’s real, and it’s only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read on!


	27. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bucky and Steve make a promise (a vow, if you will)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2 og 2 of the double update!

“Just so you know,” Bucky tells Steve, “I’m gonna be a tough act to follow.”

“Good. I’d be offended if you let me win.”

“There’s no winn—you know what, never mind. Just listen to me now, wouldja? Okay. _Okay_. Here we go.

Steve. I’ve been dreaming about this day since I was eleven years old. I hear some of you saying, ‘but Bucky, didn’t you meet in college?’ Well, sorta. But the first time I met Steve Rogers I was eleven years old. We didn’t talk or nothin’, he barely even glanced at me—I know, hard to imagine. He had just started 3rd grade at my old school and I’d never seen such an angry-looking kid. I should’ve known right then that he’d be trouble, but hell—_heck_, sorry, Father—that first day I also saw him smile, and I… I’d never known you could fall in love so fast. I didn’t know it then, but by God, I should’ve. Everyone else did.

As fate would have it, we weren’t to be back then. Time and space parted us for years to come. I was heartbroken, absolutely gutted—you can ask anyone, Dum Dum, Becca, my Ma. They’ll all tell you the same. For years, I talked of nothing and no one but the boy with the sunshine smile. I thought I was real subtle but let me assure you: I was _not_.

And I continued to not be subtle. Nearly a full decade later, I met you for the second time, and this time, we weren’t to be parted again. It was a costume party, but I looked right at you and I knew you instantly. So I did what I thought best: I hid under a table. Again: I am not smooth. Never was, never will be, ‘specially not with your eyes on me.

It wasn’t smooth sailing from there, though it probably could’ve been if we weren’t such knuckleheads. You all know the tale—it’s a family favorite! To cut a long story short, it was a mess of bad ideas, fake dates, ‘practice’ kisses, and excuse upon excuse to stay by each other’s side. It wasn’t until nearly six months later that I could finally call you mine in truth.

But I wouldn’t change a thing. It got us here, today. It got me a kick-ass mother-in-law who knows just how to knock sense into the both of us. It got me an extended family—_our_ family, now. It got me love confessions in the form of sketches, got me hope and happiness. It got me everything I needed to be the best possible version of myself.

But most of all, it got me you.

I love you, Steven Grant Rogers. I have loved you since the first _days_ I met you. I’ve loved your smile and your laugh and your heart and your fire. You never stand down, never hold back. Every day with you is a blessing.

And here we are, before our family, before this good Father, and before God, to promise each other love and honesty and loyalty. To give you my name and to take yours as mine. But remember that everything I promise you here today was yours from the moment I met you, and when our time on earth is up, it’ll still be yours. There is no force in life or in death that could part me from you.

Stevie, I take you for my lawful husband. In sickness and health, to have and to hold, from this this day and unto eternity, through your fits of temper, through your whirlwind obsessions, through sunshine and storms and everything in between. There’s no shaking me now, sweetheart. I love you. I’m yours.”

Steve’s crying, but trying to hold it in. Patches of flush stain his lovely face, clashing against his lilac tie. He’s wearing a tailored, double-breasted gray suit and daffodils in his breast pocket.

Bucky, likewise, is in a gray suit, but single-breasted and with a butterfly instead of a tie. He’s grown his hair out some; it’s almost chin length, and it took nearly an hour to get it coiffed just right. He’s tearing up a little bit, and his cheeks hurt from smiling.

Sarah beams proudly at them, holding hands with Winifred while George tries to be subtle with his tears, and Bucky’s sisters are grinning manically. All their friends and family are here, dressed to the nines, and united in joy for Bucky and Steve.

Bucky leans in. “Am I winning?”

“Stop smirking, you dork,” Steve tells him, sniffling. “God, I love you so much. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you win. Let me just pull myself together, I’m fine, I can do this. Alright.

You talk of knowing me the second you saw me at that party, but the bolt of recognition didn’t touch just you. I knew you, too. I saw you lookin’ at me that first day of school, and I swear to you I looked back.

When we met again, I told you that I knew your name from around town, and then that I’d recognized you on one of the most turbulent days of your life. Those were lies, both of them. I had made mark of your name from that first day in elementary school, catching snippets when your sister spoke of you to her friends, and I’d never forgotten it. I knew your name and I knew your face, and I’ll know your soul forever and beyond. You once told me we were gonna make it to the end of the line, but that’s not long enough. You know it, too. It’s me and you, come forever.

And you are so much more than the dreams I had back then. You are humble and good, strong and vulnerable, funny and smart. My world fell into place when we came together. I love your mind and your body and your smile and your soul. You keep me honest, remind me that even when everything seems dark, the most important things are right here and waiting for me. For _us_.

I’d keep going, but there are no words, no way to tell you how much I love you. How much it means to me to be here with you, to have had the chance to know you in truth. I’ve tried painting it, tried to match colors to the way I feel when I’m with you, but the human mind can’t comprehend the shades. All that I can say, all that I can show, is that I was born to love you, and not a day goes by that I’m not grateful to fulfill my purpose.

You’re my best friend, the love of my life. My Bucky. I take you for my lawful husband. In sickness and health, to have and to hold, from this this day forward and unto eternity, in dark times and light, in this world and the next. Nothing can do us part.”

*

“It’s time for Mr. and Mr. Barnes-Rogers to take the floor!” Tony calls, hastily clearing their path.

It’s been six years. Six amazing, unbelievable years.

Bucky proposed in October, going down on one knee only to have Steve pull a ring right out, too, and say, “I’ll be your husband, if you’ll be mine. _No takebacks_!” Seven months later and here they are, at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, all gussied up and drunk on love. The venue’s beautiful, simple and elegant, the flowers a rush of pale lilacs, blue dahlias, and pink roses.

Everybody is here. Their family and their friends, intermingling and laughing and possibly plotting world domination (Natasha, Peggy, and Becca are all looking way to happy). Bucky’s barely had a moment to breathe, either gazing at his husband, stuffing his face, or running around after their goddaughter to give Dum Dum and Irina a moment’s peace. For a three-year-old with short, chubby legs, she moves like _lightning._ Little Allie is the apple of her godfathers’ eyes and had stolen everyone’s adoration by being the flower girl. Like, Bucky can _feel _his Ma rehearsing her I’d-like-to-be-a-grandma-someday speech (if only she knew).

Scott and Clint are still at the snack table, gobbling up food like they never eat at home. It had taken them nearly as long to get together as it did for Steve and Bucky; in the end, their saving grace had been Scott’s friend, Hope, who’d met Clint and bluntly said “so, you’re the boyfriend?”, and Clint, beyond fed-up with miscommunication, had said, “well, I’d _like _to be.”

Peggy is radiant in her grooms-people’s dress, baby bump barely hidden. They haven’t told anyone yet (except Steve and Bucky; the dress had had to be redone to fit properly), but the way Angie is grinning and looking at her wife really doesn’t hide as much as she thinks it does.

Thor and Bruce, Natasha and Sam, Tony and Pepper… somehow, they’ve all made it through college and onto greener pastures without growing apart. Bucky would need both hands and his feet besides to count the couples who’d met at Xavier International. Monty, too, is among that number, hopelessly gone on his girlfriend, Dr. Faiza Hussain, whom he’d met his last semester. Gabe and Dernier are another addition, though they’re still trying to pull the “we’re just trying it out, don’t get excited”. They’ve been ‘trying it out’ for nearly two years now.

The song begins, and Bucky leads Steve onto the dancefloor. They’ve both shed their jackets, so Steve is in one of his infernal corset-vests, tie loosened around his slender neck, and Bucky is in a cummerbund and his sleeves are rolled up.

It’s been so long, and yet it’s gone so fast. They’ve had their ups and downs. Steve got frightfully sick one winter, scaring Bucky half to death, and Bucky worked so hard his first year on the job that he ended up having to see a therapist for his stress meltdown. But though those incidents seemed to last forever while they were happening, looking back, they were only blips.

Nothing shines as bright as the good times. Like when they brought their first apartment (and then their second, because the first really was a shithole; they live in Brooklyn Heights now); or when they adopted Alpine, their cat, from the humane society. When Bucky got a promotion; or when Steve got his first steady gig with an independent comic writer. Their first vacation together, in Paris like Bucky had daydreamed all those years ago.

The list goes on and on and on. More recently, they’ve decided to try and become foster parents (but they haven’t told anyone yet, too nervous still; they can’t quite wrap their heads around it, so awed that they’re here, that they’re _ready_).

As Elvis croons about wise men and fools, Bucky takes Steve in his arms.

He comes so easily, laughing as he fits himself to Bucky. Steve has never been an elegant dancer, and lessons haven’t helped any, but Bucky wouldn’t trade his clumsy missteps for the world. They sneak kisses, shutting out the world and swaying as if in a dream.

Tomorrow, they’re going on their honeymoon.

Steve will ride Bucky through the mattress, and Bucky will return the favor. Time and familiarity haven’t slowed them down yet, always hungry for each other. Bucky is never more himself than when he’s gasping Steve’s name, and Steve is never more beautiful than when he’s surrendering himself in full. Their new chapter together will start with a bang. 

A few months from now, they’ll welcome the boy who will become their son, a troubled, lonely twelve-year-old named Riley James. In a few years’ time, Tommy Shepherd will follow (and when his long-lost twin brother appears, happily adopted into another family, they make room for him to stay whenever he wants, too).

Down the line, Bucky will get started on a protype for low-cost, high-end prosthetics, the trial run of which will be so successful, they’ll barely be able to balance supply and demand. Steve will land his first job as an animator—not at Disney, but another large company—and help create a 2D movie that’ll go on to win an Oscar.

They’ll get a dog, whom Alpine will turn into her personal servant.

They’ll get married, _again, _because Tommy is sad that he didn’t get to see it the first time. Riley will pretend he’s above it, but he’ll secretly be delighted. His dads are so in love, it’s disgusting.

They’ll be happy.

They _are _happy.

“I love you.”

“Like, fake-love or—”

“Oh my God, you gotta let that go.”

“As you wish.”

Really, what can Bucky do except dip his husband and kiss him senseless?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end, my friends.
> 
> thank you all a thousand times for you kindness. i cannot begin to explain just how much it means to me. 
> 
> to those who celebrate, happy holidays! to those who don't, i wish you all the best!


End file.
